...Psychoanalysis of Hamlet’s Subconscious Psychoanalytic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet In the first half of the 20th century, when psychoanalysis was at the height of its influence, its concepts were applied to Hamlet, notably by Sigmund Freud, Ernest Jones, and Jacques Lacan, and these studies influenced theatrical productions. Freud suggested that an unconscious oedipal conflict caused Hamlet's hesitations. (Artist: Eugène Delacroix 1844). In his The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Freud's analysis starts from the premise that "the play is built up on Hamlet's hesitations over fulfilling the task of revenge that is assigned to him; but its text offers no reasons or motives for these hesitations".[83] After reviewing various literary theories, Freud concludes that Hamlet has an "Oedipal desire for his mother and the subsequent guilt [is] preventing him from murdering the man [Claudius] who has done what he unconsciously wanted to do".[84] Confronted with his repressed desires, Hamlet realises that "he himself is literally no better than the sinner whom he is to punish".[83] Freud suggests that Hamlet's apparent "distaste for sexuality"—articulated in his "nunnery" conversation with Ophelia—accords with this interpretation.[85][86] John Barrymore's long-running 1922 performance in New York was characterized as "revolutionary in its use of Freudian psychology; in keeping with the post World War I rebellion against everything...
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...play, Hamlet by William Shakespeare explores the concept of revenge. To most people, revenge means getting back at somebody. In order to get to the point of wanting revenge, something has to happen to you and has to get to you. Revenge is a common human emotion that is usually negative and destructive. This destructive aspect of revenge is evident in the play, Hamlet. The main character of the play, Prince Hamlet, is the principal character who struggles with seeking revenge. For Hamlet, revenge becomes a chain reaction in the play causing him to commit acts of violence against others both intentional and accidental. Other characters in the play like Laertes, Hamlet’s dead father’s ghost, Fortinbras, and King Claudius also look for revenge. Overall, the play Hamlet portrays revenge as a destructive and powerful emotion that negatively influences the characters. The first incident where revenge is brought up in the play is at the beginning when Hamlet confronts the ghost of his father. Horatio, Hamlet’s friend, is the one who tells Hamlet that there is a ghost that Hamlet needs to see. Intrigued by this thought, Hamlet goes with Horatio to see this ghost. As it turns out, the apparition is the ghost of Hamlet’s dead father. The revenge is mentioned when the ghost commands Hamlet to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” (1.5.31) The ghost does not hesitate to mention revenge; it is a natural act that Hamlet should commit to honor his father. Hamlet is told...
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...Not all the foils of Hamlet included by Shakespeare were used to demonstrate negative aspects of Hamlet’s character. Shakespeare also utilized King Claudius as a foil to Hamlet which allows for the elucidation of Hamlet’s positive qualities such as his values of honesty and loyalty. King Claudius and Hamlet both depict similar traits throughout the play that allow them to be compared as foils to each other. One of the reasons often mentioned when the cause of Hamlet’s procrastination is discussed is the fact that Hamlet may have realized just how similar he is to his uncle. In terms of the oedipal complex developed by Sigmund Freud, it is thought that perhaps Hamlet subconsciously had desired to murder his own father as a means of obtaining...
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...relationships, especially the relationship between a mother and her son. Sigmund Freud himself came up with the Oedipus complex, which is when a boy has an attachment to the mother, which in turns results in aggressive and envious feelings toward...
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...Spying is a recurring theme in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet as it creates an abundant amount of dramatic intensity throughout the play. It causes the death of Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and it reveals significant characteristics of major characters. Shakespeare specifically incorporates spying into certain scenes known as observation scenes or ‘closet scenes’. An observation scene dramatically enhances the climatic moments of the play and develops the complex reasoning behind many major characters such as Hamlet. The most important observation scene in the play is Act III scene IV as Hamlet discusses his true feelings to Gertrude while Polonius overhears the conversation. It probes the sexuality of Hamlet and Gertrude and is the turning-point in which Hamlet demonstrates a change in character. Throughout the play, Hamlet displays hostility towards his uncle Claudius due to the marriage between him and Gertrude. This is especially evident in the closet scene as Hamlet berates his mother with many sexual and incestuous references. In order to explain the relationship between Hamlet and his mother, Sigmund Freud’s theory the Oedipus Complex identifies this situation as a male’s unconscious sexual desire for his mother (Losh). Freud believes that these sexual desires are repressed unconsciously which in turns creates a lasting effect in a boy’s life (Losh). An example in this scene is when Hamlet says: “But to live / In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, / Stewed...
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...Spying is a recurring theme in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet as it creates an abundant amount of dramatic intensity throughout the play. It causes the death of Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and it reveals significant characteristics of major characters. Shakespeare specifically incorporates spying into certain scenes known as observation scenes or ‘closet scenes’. An observation scene dramatically enhances the climatic moments of the play and develops the complex reasoning behind many major characters such as Hamlet. The most important observation scene in the play is Act III scene IV as Hamlet discusses his true feelings to Gertrude while Polonius overhears the conversation. It probes the sexuality of Hamlet and Gertrude and is the turning-point in which Hamlet demonstrates a change in character. Throughout the play, Hamlet displays hostility towards his uncle Claudius due to the marriage between him and Gertrude. This is especially evident in the closet scene as Hamlet berates his mother with many sexual and incestuous references. In order to explain the relationship between Hamlet and his mother, Sigmund Freud’s theory the Oedipus Complex identifies this situation as a male’s unconscious sexual desire for his mother (Losh). Freud believes that these sexual desires are repressed unconsciously which in turns creates a lasting effect in a boy’s life (Losh). An example in this scene is when Hamlet says: “But to live / In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, / Stewed...
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...and over numerous time periods. When analysing English literary tradition and the stratification and progression of English as a language there are very few discussions that would not include at least some reference to the works of William Shakespeare as he clearly illustrates the means in which both new words and language are coined as he was extremely prolific is his creation of both new words and the utilisation of existing dialect to form new meanings. Hamlet forms an extensive and rich text from which to examine both this progression of English language but also provides a viable source of comparison to other texts included within the module, its location chronologically makes it a good source of evaluation when contextualised against much earlier work such as Beowulf we are able to identify the progression from early English and it's heavy Germanic influences into middle English of Chaucer and then on to the more standardised early modern English that Shakespeare utilised. We are also able to contrast Hamlet with more contemporary English work such as in order to see how much spelling uniformity, syntax and form have progressed. Evidence of this is displayed even when...
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...influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalytic reading has been practiced since the early development of psychoanalysis itself, and has developed into a rich and heterogeneous interpretive tradition. It is a literary approach where critics see the text as if it were a kind of dream. This means that the text represses its real (or latent) content behind obvious (manifest) content. The process of changing from latent to manifest content is known as the dream work, and involves operations of concentration and displacement. The critic analyzes the language and symbolism of a text to reverse the process of the dream work and arrive at the underlying latent thoughts. Freud wrote several important essays on literature, which he used to explore the psyche of authors and characters, to explain narrative mysteries, and to develop new concepts in psychoanalysis (for instance, Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva and his influential readings of the Oedipus myth and Shakespeare's Hamlet in The Interpretation of Dreams). His followers and later readers, such as Carl Jung and Jacques Lacan, were avid readers of literature as well, and used literary examples as illustrations of important concepts in their work (for instance, Lacan argued with Jacques Derrida over the interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter"). Jung and another of Freud's disciples, Karen Horney, broke with Freud, and their work, especially Jung's, led to other rich branches...
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...The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Set in the Kingdom of Denmark, the play dramatizes the revenge Prince Hamlet exacts on his uncle Claudius for murdering King Hamlet, Claudius's brother and Prince Hamlet's father, and then succeeding to the throne and taking as his wife Gertrude, the old king's widow and Prince Hamlet's mother. The play vividly portrays both true and feigned madness – from overwhelming grief to seething rage – and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption. Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play and among the most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language, with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others." The play was one of Shakespeare's most popular works during his lifetime It has inspired writers from Goethe and Dickens to Joyce and Murdoch, and has been described as "the world's most filmed story after Cinderella". Shakespeare based Hamlet on the legend of Amleth, preserved by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum as subsequently retold by 16th-century scholar François de Belleforest. He may also have drawn on or perhaps written an earlier Elizabethan play known today as the Ur-Hamlet. He almost certainly created the title role for Richard Burbage, the leading tragedian of Shakespeare's time. In the 400 years since, the role has been performed by highly acclaimed actors and actresses from each successive age. Three...
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...He called her Lucia after Joyce's mad daughter, or sometimes he said she was Santa Lucia, singing her song at the top of his voice whenever she stepped into the studio He never had problems telling them apart - Sophia, Maude, Cassandra, Sinbad, Costello, Tatiana, Hamlet, Icarus, Jezebel or the dozen or so children by the secondary mothers. 'Lucrezia!' he'd call out, without turning his head. 'O mercy to myself I cried, if Lucy should be dead!' There he'd be at his easel, dressed in a spattered blue shirt like the one Kirk Douglas wore in Lust for Life, surrounded by the paintings that he turned out so effortlessly. Portraits mostly - not just of women, though these were his most famous. The faces of madmen and vagrants from his Dublin sketchbooks, and of his own children when they were young. Sometimes he even said she was named after Lucian Freud, that cold fish, just to tease her. Lucian Freud! The London establishment. To Ridley, painting was just a fragment of what he was about. His great enterprise was the gathering of hidden knowledge, and for him the true meaning of art transcended craftsmanship. All of his offspring were talented. Costello was playing Horatio at the Old Vic. Tatiana's first novel was on the Booker shortlist, while Cassandra was a furniture designer and Icarus a potter. Only Lucia had chosen a more conventional career. She taught at a school in a small town far away. She loved the bright eyes and the squirrelling bodies of the little...
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...Hamlet: Antic Disposition or Actually Deranged? “I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on.” In Act I scene v of The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, Prince Hamlet proclaims these famous words. But what do they actually mean? For decades, readers and audiences alike have been wondering if Hamlet’s “antic disposition” is actually an act, or complete and total madness. It is very possible that, if Hamlet were alive today, he would have been diagnosed with many mental illnesses including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and bipolar disorder. This is not to say he had these throughout the entirety of his life, but after the death of his father and other traumatic events that added to Hamlet’s misery, his act of madness developed into actual insanity. If he were alive in modern times, he would have been treated for these illnesses with a combination of therapy and medications. Unfortunately, during the time this play is set and was written, a full understanding of psychological disorders has not yet been reached. Because his mental illnesses went untreated, Hamlet was a danger to both himself and others. He is so much of a danger that he kills his uncle, King Claudius, Polonius, Laertes, and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Additionally, although it is not by his own hand, both Ophelia, the love of Hamlet’s life, and his mother, Queen Gertrude, take their own lives. Eventually, Hamlet himself dies as a result...
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...2. Bibliographic review In order to have a better understanding of the concept of trauma I resorted to one of the most important authors in relation to its study who is Sigmund Freud. He marked the beginning of a new understanding of the human mind with his theories about the unconscious, the psyche and the dream analysis, among others. From his work Of Mourning and Melancholia (1917), I could extract the concepts named in this title to employ them in the examination of Gemma’s trauma. As I am analysing in concrete Holocaust trauma, I also paid close attention to a more recent study of the mind, Dominick Lacapra’s History and Memory after Auschwitz (1998), that offers an explanation of some of Freud’s theories and an extended study of the...
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...of interpreting Shylock as a villain is based entirely upon the culture that they were brought up in. However I feel Shakespeare was a writer ahead of his time who wrote not only for the general public but for much more philosophical minds. These are in my views the definitive points of Shakespeare’s distinctive writing style – the interpretation the reader has is usually different, writing not only for the general audience but for great minds and of course being a writer ahead of his time I feel he knew we would interpret it differently to the audience in his time of living which is what interests me. Many great minds use Shakespeare’s works to refer as ‘proof’ of their theories, a good example is the psychologist Sigmund Freud who often referred to Hamlet in his explanation of the oedipal complex. I strongly feel Shakespeare was attempting to subtly show the unfairness and anti-Semitic views of people in his time. A famous part of the play where Shylock delivers his speech ‘Hath not a Jew Eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions…’ ; asked rhetorically it emphasises that Jews are just as human as Christians and that when they have been abused their lust for revenge is no different to a Christian’s lust for revenge when he has been wronged. Yes it’s true if he wasn’t Jewish this story might have been very different but another way to look at this is that if Antonio, Bassanio and their party did not have such a strong fascist view on Shylock. Shylock could have easily...
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...1712-8056 Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture Http://www.cscanada.org Http://www.cscanada.net E-mail: css@cscanada.org; caooc@hotmail.com Vol.5 No.5 2009 10/31/2009 Hamlet’s Femininity L A F É MINIT É D E HAMLET GUO De-yan1 Abstract: The charm of Hamlet over the centuries largely lies in Shakespeare’s subtle treatment of Hamlet, and many critics have interpreted Hamlet’s tragedy as a result of his indecisive character, his obsession with philosophical thinking or his Oedipus Complex. This essay holds that Hamlet’s struggle with his femininity also contributes to his tragedy. Hamlet does exhibit some masculine traits such as courage, rationality and aggressiveness, but at the same time he is agonized to find that he is as weak, emotional, passive and dependent as a woman. In whatever cases he is placed either as a prince, a son or a lover, he is more identified with women than with men. Such a discovery tortures him and produces in him some sense of self-negation and self-hatred. Because of his deep-rooted patriarchal concept of gender identity, Hamlet cannot make a compromise with the feminine traits in him, and it somewhat prevents him from taking a masculine action to avenge his father. Key words: Hamlet; Femininity; Masculinity; Tragedy; Self-Hatred Résumé: Depuis des sicècles, le charme d’Hamlet se trouve largement dans un traitement subtil de Shakespeare de ce personnage et de nombreuses critiques ont interprété la tragédie d'Hamlet...
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...A time-line of transgender identities. © 1999 Drs. Arianne van der Ven Contents Summery 2 Introduction: The development of gender as we know it How does history relate to us? 3 From a one-gender system to a two-gender system, and on to ‘third sex’ categories. 3 Some specifics of gender transitions. 5 Part I: Sexology begins. Transgender Identities before the 19th century 7 The early 19th century: Enters forensic psychiatry 7 The late nineteenth century: Inverts turn to Experts. Enters sexology and the empirical case history. 8 Part II: Early 20th century The rise of Psychoanalysis and it's denial of transgender identities Developments in Medical technology. 10 Psycho-analysis’ erasure of transgender 11 The sixties and seventies: routine treatment of the empty transsexual 12 Part III: Transgender becomes Real. The emergence of transgender. 15 De-constructing gender, from gender identity to “freedom of gender expression”. 15 Changes in transgender care. 17 The lack of transgender in Continental Europe. 18 References 19 Summery This paper was originally written for the “Sex, Gender and Identity” program of The School for International Training (SIT) in Amsterdam. SIT is an US university and specializes in study abroad programs for students from American universities. This paper discusses transgender identities during the last...
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