Psychological Problems Upon Hamlet's Procrastination
Uploaded by Hamed Jamalpour on Feb 15, 2009
This paper will explain some characteristics of Psychological approach in literature, and will argue about psychological problems upon Shakespeare’s most famous character, Hamlet, who has been suffer from Oedipal feelings, considering father as a rival to his mother’s love, which prevent him to made his mind to accept whether his father’s says are true or not.
Of all critical approaches to literature, the psychological has been one of the most controversial, the most abused ,and-for many reader-the least appreciated .In the general sense of the word, there is nothing new about the psychological approach .as early as the fourth century BC, Aristotle used it in setting forth his classic definition of tragedy as combining the emotions of pity and fear to produce catharsis. during the twentieth century ,however, psychological criticism has come to be associated with a particular school of thought ,the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud(1856-1939)and his followers.
I.THE PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH: Freud
A.FREUD’S THEORIES
The foundation of Freud’s contribution to modern psychology is his emphasis on the unconscious aspects of the human psyche. A brilliant creative genius, Freud provided convincing evidence, through his many carefully recorded case studies, that most of our actions are motivated by psychological forces over which we have very limited control.
He demonstrated that, like the iceberg, the human mind is structured so that its great weight and density lie beneath the surface (below the level of consciousness). In “the anatomy of the mental personality”. Freud discriminates between the levels of conscious and unconscious mental activity.
The oldest and best meaning of the word “unconscious” is the descriptive one ; we call “unconscious” any mental process the existence , we infer it in some way from its effects. If we want to be more accurate, we should modify the statement by saying that we cal a process “unconscious” when we have to assume that it was active at a certain time , although at that time we knew nothing about it(99_100)
Freud further 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 under conditions which frequently arise ,and another in the case...