A starting point in developing a theoretical basis to your interpretation of HAMLET

1. HAMLET?
What is it all about?
The possibilities are endless…

2. Hamlet is an enigma
• It is probably evident to you by
now that Hamlet is puzzling
and difficult to understand.
• People have been trying to
interpret the play for centuries
and, to make it more
confusing… a variety of
interpretations are possible.

3. • Many regard the play through
a contextual lens. This means
they believe that literature is a
reflection of the values and
worldviews of the world from
which it comes.
• This trend is a logical extension
of critical interest in the issues
of slant and bias of the media
in a worldview dominated by
television.

4. Various Interpretations
• Over the centuries Hamlet has been interpreted by a range of critics from a
great variety of schools of thought.
• William Hazlitt, a Romantic (1800), focused on the tragic character flaw of
Hamlet.
• Northrop Frye used Archetypal Criticism through the 1970’s and 1980’s to
connect patterns in Shakespeare to those in the bible, tying meaning in texts to
the universal motifs and allusions that reflect human experience and shape
culture.

5. And of course there’s Freud
• Freudian criticism is another
school of thought worth
mentioning in relation
to Hamlet.
• The psychoanalytic approach
Freud pioneered has been
applied to the character of
Hamlet, resulting in
explorations of his ‘oedipal
complex’.

6. The "Closet Scene" is probably the scene that gives the most credit to
Freudian interpretations of Hamlet. Without this scene, it would seem unlikely
that Shakespeare had any intentions of suggesting an oedipal relationship
between Hamlet and his mother.
In this scene, Hamlet directs an intense amount of negative emotion towards
his mother, which is understandable given the particular situation. Instead of
focusing on the obvious – Gertrude’s possible involvement in old Hamlet’s
death, or at least her present marriage to his murderer – young Hamlet
focuses primarily on his mother’s sexuality.
Hamlet then conjures up some pretty shocking imagery in showing his disgust
over Gertrude and Claudius’ "incestuous" relationship: "to live in the rank
sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
over the nasty sty"(92-3). At the end of the scene, it seems that Hamlet’s
verbal assault has been successful and the queen seems to be at the point of
breaking. But when she asks Hamlet, "what shall I do?"(180), he responds not
by demanding a confession but by demanding that she abstain from sexual
activity with Claudius (159- 67).
If we see Hamlet’s strange focus in this scene as being representative of his
true motivations, then it’s possible that Shakespeare intends Hamlet’s conflict
to be somewhat oedipal in nature. Shakespeare’s first wife, remember, was
old enough to be his mother…