Freudian Complexes in Hamlet's Procrastination
Uploaded by Hamed Jamalpour on Feb 15, 2009
Introduction
There are a lot of approaches in literature; the psychological approach is one of the most controversial, and important ones. In the general sense of the word, there is nothing new about the psychological approach. As Aristotle define it in tragedy as combining the emotions of pity and fear to produce catharsis. During the 20th century, psychological approach flourished by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)and his followers.
Mainly Freud concerns with unconscious aspects of the human psyche. According to documentary case studies Freud believes that most of our actions are according to our unconscious, which we have a little control on it. He demonstrated that our psyche is like an iceberg, which it’s greater part is under the surface of water, as unconscious, and just a little part of it is on the surface, as conscious part. In the anatomy of the mental personality Freud emphasizes the importance of the unconscious by pointing out that even the “most conscious processes are conscious for only a short period; quit soon they become Latent, though they can easily become conscious again”(100).In view of this ,Freud defines two kinds of unconscious: One which is transformed into conscious material easily, and another in the case of which such a transformation is difficult . Freud divided the psyche in 3 part :the Id(pleasure principle) ,the Ego (reality principle) ,and the Superego( morality principle).
In literature psychological approach is one of the prominent approaches which critics use it to analyze the plays, characters…. in this research researcher uses this approach to show whether Hamlet is psychologically ill or not? Hamlet is the protagonist of Shakespeare's masterpiece. He is a tragic hero who is doubtful about all his deeds and decisions. He cannot kill Claudius, his uncle, because, Hamlet suffers from Oedipus complex, considering father as a rival to his mother’s love and trying to kill him. We can define Hamlet’s conflict to killing his uncle an internal rather than external problem and that the play is mainly concerned with a hero’s useless fight against what...