sábado, 22 de noviembre de 2014

Freud’s view on Hamlet: Why does he desire revenge?

Hello everyone!

As we all know, Hamlet’s story has to do with his desire of revenge against his uncle. But why does he desire so hard this revenge?

According to Freud and his followers, Hamlet’s desire of revenge has to do, as we all know, with the fact that he had killed King Hamlet. But why does it take so long to take revenge for this action?
First of all, it is said that Claudius represented the most inner childhood fantasies of Hamlet. The dreams that he had since he was a kid of becoming the king. Hamlet associated himself with Claudius because Claudius was the one living his dreams, this is the main reason why Hamlet hesitates on killing Claudius in the first place and this is why the end of Claudius is the reason for Hamlet to die too. In the murderer of Claudius, a part of Hamlet dies too.

Also, Hamlet evident rejection for sexuality when talking to Ophelia has to do with his mother, Gertrude, having this strong relationship with his uncle. The deception of Hamlet toward his mom at the moment of the death of his father, represents his deception towards women in general.

Even though there are many detractors for this theroy presented by Freud, It is an interesting theory. So why do you think? Do you agree with Freud?

References

Now mother, what’s the matter? Retrieved from:  http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/bierman/Elsinore/Freud/freudSolved.html

3 comentarios:

  1. Good point you have here.
    I will add, however, that Freud considered that people enjoy having sychopathic characters on the stage since we’re delighted by crazy characters because they help us express our own repressed impulses.

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  2. It is an interesting theory; however, I partially agree with Freud... Well, I don't know if Claudius really represented Hamlet's desire of childhood of becoming a King, and Claudius was representing that dream, I'd say that the new king was taking away the place that Hamlet should have taken and the way he did it was not correct for Hamlet. We all have had desires of revenge against the things that have not been fair with us… Claudius killed Hamlet’s father… Wouldn’t you want to revenge your father if someone with no reason had killed him? I think I would…

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  3. I agree with that theory, but as Carolina previously mentioned, it think that it's not unjustifiable since Claudius killed his father and married his recently widow mother. It is quite reasonable that he felt that way about his uncle and his mother, who forgot his father in a short period of time.

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