Weekly Reflection 4: Hamlet, Freud's Patient

Freud's idea on the psychological development of a person is that a child is sexually interested in the parent of the opposing gender, and in order to appeal to said parent the child imitates said parent's sexual partner (Freud 439). So, the male child imitates the father to achieve the mother's approval, and the female child imitates the mother to achieve the father's approval. If this process does not fully complete, psychological problems are supposed to follow in response to the failure, which are called 'defense mechanisms.'

In context of literary criticism, Freud may be applied to Shakespeare's Hamlet, for example. Hamlet's uncle has married his mother, who recently became widowed. Hamlet sees a vision of his father as a ghost, who tells him that his uncle murdered him. This sets Hamlet on a quest for vengance.

Applying Freud's psychological theory, Hamlet may be understood as a person who has failed to achieve his mother's approval. According to Freud, Hamlet had to imitate his father in order to mature normally. However, his father is a failure. He failed to be the only one for his wife, and was easily replaced. Through imitation, Hamlet must therefore also be a failure. This may be enough for Hamlet to trigger a defense mechanism of a mild psychopathy, which comes in the form of a vision of his father's ghost. This vision defends Hamlet as having his mother's approval because it allows him to justify trying to reverse the marriage between his uncle and mother - it allows Hamlet to see the marriage as wrong, or incorrect. If the marriage is reversed, then both Hamlet's father and Hamlet, through imitation, are not necessarily failures, because it would show that the mother truly did favor Hamlet and his father.

Works Cited_

Freud, Sigmund. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Literary Theory: An Anthology Second Edition.