A Psychological Approach In Hamlet

In Act 2, Scene 2, a theatrical troupe arrives at the castle to perform a speech from Aeneid. Impressed with the player’s performance, Hamlet asks that the player act out a short speech he has written for the next day. Once alone, Hamlet undergoes an introspection that sheds light to his cowardly disposition. The soliloquy is divided into three sections: problem, cause, and resolution. Through his initial self-condemnation for being passive, Hamlet realizes the essence of his internal struggle and devises a plan to take action without having to go against his true nature.

In great literature there are often characters who are deceitful to others to carry out a

Deception is a common tool among people of the world. For as long as we have communicated, we have worked our way around truths. The art of deception is very intricate and fragile, having to be planned carefully. In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, several characters use deception to get their own way. Three of them who made use of it are Claudius, Laertes, and Hamlet. The characters’ motivations for being deceptive differ, but the act of trickery does not. In many ways, we can see how Shakespeare was fascinated by deception and the way it could drive a story.

Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is the longest play he ever wrote and would take an estimated five hours to perform. Viewing Hamlet alongside Jungian Psychology adds an analysis that cannot be seen otherwise. Cowgil describes Jung’s work as therapy that deals with dreams and fantasies and death. The rising and land of the dead represent the unconscious self and the foreground for collective unconscious theory. This is an unconscious that “[could contain] all the dead, not just our personal ghosts” (Boerre 1). The contents of the collective unconscious are called archetypes and they contain many different levels: shadow,

Hamlet is William Shakespeare 's renowned tale of mystery, intrigue, and murder, centered on a young misguided prince who can only trust himself. Some may say that the actions of Prince Hamlet throughout the play are weak and fearful, displaying a tendency to procrastinate and showing an apathetic nature towards his family and peers. Others spin a tale of a noble young scholar, driven mad by the cold-blooded murder of his father by his uncle. In truth, I believe Hamlet is neither of these things. Hamlet is a sort of amalgamation of the two, a bundle of contradictions thrown together into one conflicting but very human mess of a character. The quote, "We admire Hamlet as much for his weaknesses as for his strengths", aptly describes my feelings towards this troubled young prince. It is simply impossible to characterise Hamlet as good or bad, strong or weak. It is my aim to show the depth of Hamlet 's personality and to explain to the best of my ability the traits which make him who he is. Hamlet is the neither the hero nor the villain of his story- he is simply a victim, a young man slowly losing his grip on sanity over the course of the play.

The personality of such characters as Hamlet from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is much remarked upon. However, it is even more meaningful to analyze changes in Hamlet’s character throughout the play. As Hamlet becomes more driven in his revenge, his actions lose morality and gain consequences. In fact, Shakespeare uses the relationship between a character’s cruelty and the meaning in the pain they cause to comment on the cyclically destructive nature of cruelty.

The character of Hamlet is expressed as a protagonist. His irritated attitude towards Claudius in scene 2 of act 1 leaves the audience with a clear first impression of his nature. He is deceitful of the king, his uncle Claudius who is now the ruler of Denmark after his brothers “death”, and disgusted of his mother marrying his uncle.

In Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet, there are a series of events that causes Hamlet to act abnormally. He has to deal with his father’s death, mother’s remarriage, and his lover Ophelia. However, it is often argued whether Hamlet’s madness is real or fake. Throughout the tragedy, he is over-exaggerating his madness for his plan of revenge. Hamlet is sane because he only acts mad in front of certain people, he told his friends of his plan of revenge, and the fact that many people continuously doubted his insanity.

The story of a young man by the name of Hamlet has been told since it was first written in the early 1600s. The timeless classic tells the tale of Prince Hamlet, who discovers that his mother had wed his uncle, two months prior to his father’s passing. He visits the throne in Denmark because he is disgusted at the act of incest, where the ghost of his deceased father confronts him, insisting that he was murdered by Claudius, the new king. Hamlet is enraged, and he becomes obsessed with the idea of proving the crime so that he can obtain revenge against Claudius (Crowther). Despite the myriad of themes that circulate throughout the Shakespearean play, many do not realize one hidden yet extensive theme: actions and their consequences. Complexities

There are many qualities that make an effective and powerful leader. Some leaders strive for greatness; others strive to make history. Though their goals may differ, all can agree that the most important component of leadership is earning the respect of those who follow you and being responsible with the power you earn. There are many strong leaders in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, though not all are effective. King Claudius and Prince Hamlet demonstrate different leadership styles, Claudius’ being more effective. Hamlet is driven by his emotions, while Claudius is selfish yet intelligent. In terms of cognitive resources, each leader demonstrates a different ethical stance. The social and cultural resources enable both Hamlet and Claudius to act in ways that are only sometimes emotional appreciate. The true differentiating characteristic is the psychological resource, resilience. It this here where one realizes who is the better leader.

“Alas, how is’t with you,/That you do bend your eye on vacancy,/And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?” (Ham 3.4.128-130). Gertrude is the only character to question the existence of the ghost of King Hamlet in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and, therefore, bring up the topic in the reader’s mind of whether or not Hamlet himself is mentally ill. The play, set in Elsinore, Denmark sometime during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is about a young prince whose father has recently died and whose mother marries his uncle. Under high levels of stress and an unknown state of illnesses running in his family, it is likely that Hamlet may indeed be suffering from one specific mental disorder – schizophrenia. Through the lens of psychoanalysis,

In the final scene of Hamlet, Hamlet says “Being thus be-netted round with villainies, -- Ere I could make a prologue to my brains, they had begun the play” (Shakespeare 131). Hamlet ironically thinks to himself as a character in a play because he is so melodramatically self-conscious. By adding this sense of paradoxical exposure, Shakespeare shows his effort to foreground the fact that the audience is watching a play within the play.

Claudius uses logic, flattery, and action in order to justify marrying the late king’s wife days after he died and becoming king himself. Claudius uses “practical” logic to justify his marriage to his former sister-in-law directly after his brother’s death. While Claudius does state that it is “befitted To bear our hearts in grief” (1.2.2-3), he logically goes through his thought process in marrying his brother’s wife days after his death. He says that in the kingdom’s time of grief it makes sense for the new king to take care of himself and his feelings along with the rest of the people. He believes marrying Gertrude is the only way to make the both of them feel better in their time of loss and he convinces the people of this. In fact, he thanks the people for their “better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along” (1.2.15-16). He turns any suspicions on him around and places the responsibility of this new

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I.v.90). Hamlet is about a young prince who is mourning the loss of his father. He then tries to seek revenge on his uncle Claudius because he poisoned his father. Throughout the play Hamlet’s behavior starts to change which causes him to become mad. The theory about all this is a

Cultural Materialism approaches tragedies as symptoms of social unrest taking place in a very particular historical moment. It focuses on the inconsistences of the text which generates cultural meaning. This is how the apparent coherence of that order is threatened from the inside by inner contradictions. The tragedy Hamlet represents the great contradictions of the decaying system of his (and Shakespeare’s) time: Providentialism.