Aliya Hunter

Mrs. P. Bradley

English 12AP-2

1 February 2017

A Hard Boiled Homelet

According to the Healthy Place stress test results, Hamlet is extremely stressed.

According to the quiz message, ...those with a score over 300 have an 80% chance of a

significant illness or accident, and Hamlet scored a 471. If Hamlet were to go to a therapist or

psychiatrist, they would likely get him to work through the grief about his father and his

resentment about his mothers remarriage healthily so that he could continue life without heavy

emotional baggage weighing him down. Hamlets seeing the ghost could be a stress induced

hallucination and hearing that he has to assassinate his uncle could be, perhaps, his own

feelings about his mothers remarriage mixing with his high level of stress. However, Horatio and

the other men on the watch also see the ghost. A possible explanation for this is the mist rising

from the cold ground late at night combined with the sleep deprivation everyone is experiencing

that late at night. Hamlet can only hear the ghost because he simply wants to hear something

from his father. When the ghost leaves at sunrise, it is perhaps the mist vaporizing with the

suns rays.

Hamlet is not handling his stress well, likely because he does not register that he is

stressed. He has likely never faced this much stress before, and since he does not have the

equivalent of therapist or a coping mechanism in general, he cannot handle the stress and

ultimately contributes to his demise.