Hamlet - an eternal enigma

William Shakespeare's Hamlet is considered by many to be the greatest and most significant play of all time, and this claim can be supported from countless angles. Everyone has at least heard of Hamlet, and whoever looks at or reads the work will form their personal opinion on the numerous life questions that are being asked.

It is known that Shakespeare often took the plot for his works from the works of other writers and historians, so As You Like It (As You Like It) is actually a reworked novel by Thomas Lodge Rosalind, and Rosalind is a reworked folk legend. Romeo and Juliet originate from the song of Arthur Brook from 1562. The tragic history of Romeus and Juliet, which irresistibly reminds of the novel by the Neapolitan creator Masucho Salernitano about Giancosa and Mariotto from 1476. VIII, Richard II, Richard III) took the historical writings of Raphael Hollinshed and played with the characters, mixing facts with fiction. However, the understanding of creation at that time was very different from today's.

The works of art were not products intended for a certain market, but the common intellectual property of the entire nation. Today, art is protected by copyright, but when we talk about works of the Middle Ages, plagiarism is too strong a word.

So the story of Hamlet, the Danish prince, is actually a Dutch folk tale about a certain Amlet written by the historian Saxo Gramatik in his work Danish History from 1516. At the end of the 16th century, the lost play Ur-Hamlet appeared in London theaters, which is today attributed to Thomas. Kidu.

Through this story, Shakespeare asks questions about what it means to be human, what is the line between good and evil, as well as whether to justify a crime and whether duty overrides morality. Thousands of pages have been written on the subject of the character of Hamlet and many thinkers have given their judgment, but the answer to the question why Hamlet hesitates has not been found.

Hamlet as an Oedipus

The psychological approach to the interpretation of literature includes an analysis of the process of creating a work, the author's personality and how it is transferred to the work, as well as an individual analysis of fictional characters. This approach is relatively modern, as it flourished in the 20th century along with psychoanalysis. Of course, the key figure for this movement is Sigmund Freud.

Freud personally dealt with the Hamlet phenomenon. In his work Interpretation of Dreams, Freud takes Hamlet as an example of his theory of the Oedipus complex. The Oedipus complex derives from Sophocles' tragedy about Oedipus, who kills his father, marries his mother and thus becomes king. In psychoanalytic theory, it is defined as the desire for sexual connection with a parent of the opposite sex and the feeling of rivalry with a parent of the same sex.

According to Freud, the root of Hamlet's hesitation is identification with Claudius and admiration for a man who did what Hamlet subconsciously wanted. In that sense, to kill Claudius would mean to kill oneself.

Hamlet also suppresses a certain amount of shame, guilt and jealousy, but the prince is not aware of his repressed instincts, which are manifested only after a significant event, that is, the murder of his father. This theory also explains the disinterest in Ophelia and the aversion to erotica that he expresses in conversation with her.

Depending on the interpretation, the scene in Gertrude's chambers can be taken as an argument in favor of this theory. The most famous interpretation of Hamlet as an epidural is that of Lawrence Olivier from 1948. Another argument could be Hamlet's (too) frequent mention and reflection on his mother's marital bed, as well as insisting on her immorality.

royd goes so far as to claim that Hamlet is a manifestation of the repressed instincts of Shakespeare himself.

Another of Freud's interpretations of this tragedy is like Shakespeare's response to the death of first his father and then his son. This assumption is supported by the fact that the main theme of the work is the relationship of the son to the father, and if we know that Shakespeare gave his only son the name Hamnet, we must admit that this approach also carries some weight.

Freud's analysis of Hamlet served as a starting point for another psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. Lacan explored the way in which the text of the play conveys man's struggle against lust and presents the ways in which man, especially at that time, controls his lust, playing around with it, ignoring it and channeling it in various other ways.

Lacan also defined a model of division between himself and others in literature, that is, a philosophical view according to which the alienation of the individual from other people and the impossibility of acceptance are always present. According to this model, Hamlet views everything around him as corrupt, unable to recognize the flaws in himself. Therefore, we can view the Danish prince as both a narcissist and an egoist.

A misogynist

Weaknesses, your name is wife!

When his uncle Claudia kills Hamlet's father (also Hamlet) and marries his mother, the protagonist awakens heavy feelings, deep shock and regret for his father when he cannot get over it. He shifts the blame for this deep melancholy into which Hamlet fell to his mother and generalizes this resentment to the entire female gender.

From the changing relationship with Ophelia, we see how much Gertrude's actions influenced Hamlet. Ophelia idealizes him at the beginning and it seems that they sincerely love each other. But on the instructions of his father Polonius, Ophelia distances herself from Hamlet, which further intensifies her aversion to women.

Hamlet feels disgust towards women. From his experience of a betrayed son and a rejected lover, Hamlet concludes that all women are unfaithful, weak and incapable of being loyal. Through Hamlet's eyes, the women in this drama are passive and pliable because the prince is not able to see the situation from their angle, the angle of an obedient daughter of a pure soul and the angle of a queen who was left without a king and thus without any protection.

Hamlet's eyesight is clouded by grief for his father, whom he saw as the perfect husband, and he cannot understand or justify his mother's marriage so quickly. The only explanation is that Gertrude is a lecher who could not control her instincts. Cynicism towards Gertrude becomes cynicism towards all women.

Women lie, cheat, manipulate, make monsters of their husbands and pretend to be innocent, but they are actually promiscuous. So, paradoxically, Ophelia is the most promiscuous precisely because she is almost angelically innocent.

On the other hand, the fact is that with her marriage, Gertrude deprived Hamlet of the throne that belonged to him after his father's death. This is a betrayal not only on a personal, but also on a political level.

However, in the last scene, Gertrude consciously drinks the poisoned wine intended for Hamlet, trying to give his life in exchange for his. This act can be seen as a confession of her sins.

All in all, although the young Dane seems like a misogynist to some, Shakespeare himself was far from it. Gertrude was given the power to elect the ruler of Denmark. Heroines like Portia, Viola or Lady Macbeth are strong and determined women, although they sometimes dress like men.

Hamlet as a believer

At the time when Hamlet was written (around 1600), the church greatly influenced everyone's view of the world. Citizens were torn between Catholicism and Protestantism, and Shakespeare himself is considered to have been a Protestant in public, and secretly a Catholic.

In any case, atheists were rare. Therefore, it is justified to look at every work from this period from the angle of religion.

It is not impossible that the reason for Hamlet's reluctance to avenge his father is precisely religion. First, many allusions from Hamlet's conversation with the spirit of the father can be interpreted as an expression of religiosity. The fact that a spirit is trapped in purgatory can be taken as proof of the existence of hell and heaven in this context.

Then, Hamlet was educated at the University of Wittenberg, the place where Martin Luther conceived Protestantism, so we can assume that he himself belongs to this religion. But the scene when the prince considers the murder of Claudius during prayer is taken as a definitive confession of Hamlet's faith.

Hamlet is confused. As a Protestant, he was taught that purgatory does not exist, and here is his father right there. As a Christian, he was taught that murder is a sin, and that is exactly what is expected of him. The opportunity to execute Claudius while he is praying is perfect, but if he takes his life during prayer, will not his soul repent and end up in paradise?

And finally, won't murder, even if it were revenge, defile Hamlet's soul and condemn him to eternal hell? When he finally attacked him, anger drove away any thought of faith. As faith has been neglected, it is no longer an obstacle to him.

These questions that torment our hero present him in an unexpected light; Hamlet is just a man, like any of us.

Humanist

On the other hand, we can view Hamlet as a man turned to man and some higher, philosophical ideals. As a longtime scholar, Hamlet is forced to return to a court ruled by intrigue, betrayal, espionage, and Machiavellianism. In this environment, it manages like a fish on dry land.

At first, we see that Hamlet has some sublime attitudes toward love and morality. Friendship is appreciated and respected, and hypocrisy is threatened, as we see from his relationship with Horace on the one hand, and Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern on the other. He is educated, well-read, interested in art.

He intelligently uses his rhetorical skills to prepare a trap for Claudia in collaboration with the acting troupe that visits the court.

When a young idealist encounters the general immorality that reigns at home, he re-examines everything he knows about life and finds it difficult to find his place in the new situation. But above all, he cannot find a justification good enough to take a human life. No matter how corrupt and destructive Claudia was, Hamlet cannot come to terms with the murder, not even of the man who executed his father.

Hamlet asks questions about what it means to be human, how much human life is worth, what is essentially good and what is evil. It is these universal motives that guarantee Shakespeare's Hamlet the status of an unsurpassed work.