Thursday, March 11, 2010

A Freudian 'Hamlet'

Most of what Freud said was bull shit, but his ideas persist to this day and laid much of the foundations of modern psychoanalysis. Though Freud’s theories that are laid in foundations of science and subjectivity are few, his other theories make for good conversation and literary analysis. We where to use a Freudian analysis of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and mine is along these lines:

Hamlet’s guilt lies in his desire to kill his uncle, and the possession of his mother—always a desire—has been won by Claudius. He hesitates killing Claudius because Claudius is a familial representation (something close in blood and spirit) of Hamlet’s repressed childhood fantasies (to possess his mother sexually, as is every boys fantasy according to Freud). To kill Claudius is to kill a part of himself, or at least the actualization of his desires. Claudius has shown Hamlet the repressed wishes of his own childhood, and Hamlet is therefore unable to kill his uncle until his mother dies and the union (and therefore Hamlet’s repressed guilt) is broken.

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