Analyze Hamlet in Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, from psychoanalytic point of view.

One might expect a psychoanalytic study of Hamlet in
Shakespeare's play by the same name might deal with his mental and emotional
issues.

Hamlet learns that his father has been murdered at his Uncle
Claudius' hand, and Hamlet announces his intent to pretend madness to gather evidence. We also
know that Hamlet is plagued by indecision, which is very much based on his need to prove that the
ghost who has accused Claudius is an "honest" one—not a lying demon who might try to trick Hamlet
to lose his immortal soul by killing a king.

One of the strongest
debates about Hamlet is whether he is, in fact, insane or just pretending. Though
he tells the audience that he is only mad when "needed," his behavior is
sometimes so erratic that it is difficult to know for certain if he is as mentally sound as he
insists.

It is during the first half of the twentieth century, that
psychoanalytic theory is applied to Hamlet, by several people—in particular,
Sigmund Freud, the pioneer in explaining "the inner mental forces determining human
behavior."

Based on his study of a variety of literary theories, as well as his
own psychoanalytic theories, Freud does not concentrate on Hamlet's
"madness" as much as Hamlet's sexual href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proclivities">proclivities, seen
through a psychoanalytic lens...

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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.'

Freud also identifies Hamlet's
desire to kill Claudius as killing the "father figure" who stands in his way. Freud goes on to
explain that Hamlet's repressed sexual desires for Gertrude make him feel as sinful as Claudius,
who Hamlet describes as [a]...

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..."incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane."
(V.ii.335)

Freud's analysis of Hamlet
has been taken quite to heart and supported by others such as Ernest Jones and Jacques Lacan.
Freud's influence has also had an enormous influence in the way that the Prince of Denmark has
been portrayed over the years by the actors who have chosen to interpret this tragic figure as a
man with an Oedipal-complex.

H. R. Coursen insists that criticism of
Hamlet must be "psychological" in nature. However, he states that
psychoanalysis can only be subjective because it is based upon the perceptions/theories of a
particular psychoanalyst. He explains that no matter how objective the "critic" may be, he/she is
driven to answer the question presented in the first line of the play: "Who's there?" In trying
to be objective, the critic becomes subjective.

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Any claim to critical objectivity signals an inevitable
surrender to unperceived
subjectivity.

Coursen goes on to write
that with Hamlet, all anyone can hope to do is provide a
personal response to Hamlet's character, not an objective
one.

The greatest
critics...admit their [subjectivity] and do not claim to tell us 'what
Hamlet means,' but 'what Hamlet means to
me.'

So while the most "popular"
psychoanalytic evaluation of Hamlet—by Freud—says he is a man with a secret desire for his
mother, Coursen argues that analyses of this nature reveal more about the psychoanalyst than that
of the character of Hamlet. After all, psychoanalysis as a science is a mixed bag at best,
depending on whose theory you accept.

Additional
Source:

http://www.notablebiographies.com/Fi-Gi/Freud-Sigmund.html