Psychoanalytic Criticism - Hamlet Analysis

The latent meaning behind Hamlet’s actions in Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, can be a faked madness driven by deep depression. He is, without doubt, one of the most complicated characters presented in the history of the dramatic genre. His multiple soliloquys reflecting on different matters, his metaphorical type of general expression that jars with the audience and the inactiveness of his persona, damped by his own self, automatically conduct the reader to consider the factors that might have influenced him.

The first act gives us the particular impression that Hamlet’s sorrow is deeply rooted in his father’s death. His mother marries her brother-in-law in an incestuous marriage that obliterates Hamlet’s hopes and worsens his emotional situation terribly. “O that this too sullied flesh would melt, // (…) had not fix’d // His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter.” (Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 129-131) The protagonist is completely detached from the amour-propre inherent to most human individuals. The use of imagery in his speech and the way in which Shakespeare portrays his speech through an irregular iambic pentameter delivers hints about his mental state. The effect generated is that of Hamlet wanting to take his own life or sink into an internal darkness. This idea repeats itself when he mentions that he does not “…set (…) life at a pin’s fee…” (Act 1, Scene 4, line 65) and interacts with what turns out to be his father’s ghost.

The appearance of his progenitor’s spectrum definitely influences Hamlet further into his grief and it reiterates his own suspicions, justifying the hatred he feels for his uncle, King Claudius. It is around this part that Hamlet begins to develop an apparent madness. "He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound // (...) He seem'd to find his way without his eyes..." (Act 2, Scene 1, lines 94-98) And it makes the reader wonder: Is he really crazy? It is later discovered in the play, by his own words: "I am but mad north-north west." (act 2, Scene 2, line 368), that he is lucid most of the time. This makes us believe that he is probably faking his madness. His dialogues with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern also reveal us that he has come back from England and that he considers Denmark to be a prison. This sums up to the depressive concepts we had of him: his father dies, he has to come back to Denmark and then he finds out the incestuous relationship between his mother and his uncle. As he himself mentions, he feels trapped. He needs to decide if he has to avenge his father, killing King Claudius. It is a decision that seems to be crawling on his skin and that places a lot of responsibility on him, that he probably doesn't know how to face.