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Hamlet: plea for a measure of normality

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Hamlet: plea for a measure of normality

Anders Zachrisson

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THE SCANDINAVIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC REVIEW, 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01062301.2017.1288311

Hamlet: plea for a measure of normality

Anders Zachrisson
Psychological Department, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The author first considers issues in psychoanalytic interpretations of literary characters, especially Received 29 June 2016
the question of treating the character as fiction (the aesthetic illusion) or as a real person. The Accepted 23 January 2017
position he adopts is to interpret Hamlet as a potential person, created by Shakespeare and an
KEYWORDS
expression of Shakespeare’s actual – and intuitive – view of man.
Interpreting Hamlet;
With a synopsis of the tragedy and the context of its creation as background, the author then revenge story and psychic
reflects on questions concerning the play. How does Shakespeare present the characters? Is drama; Hamlet’s madness;
Hamlet’s madness pretended or real? Which conflicts does he handle in the course of the play? conflicts and ethics;
Has Oedipal dynamics a role as motivational factor in his mind? Oedipality; normality
Hamlet is irrational, impulsive, emotional, inhibited, brooding, suspicious, revengeful, condemn-
ing and much more. But, in the view of the author, he is all this in a human, ‘normal’ way. There is
nothing convincingly pathological or constricted in his character. ‘Un-normal’ is his intelligence
and his wit. Hamlet – an intelligent, reflected, resourceful prince in late Renaissance – who has
wrestle with a madhouse of political intrigues, family murders and deceitful friends.
Hamlet in Shakespeare’s text – a fairly normal person in quite a mad world.

Prince Hamlet, you are what we are, a man in the
midst of universal woe. . You are prompt and slow,
audacious and timid, kind and cruel, you believe and
you doubt, you are wise and, above all, you are mad. In
a word, you live. Which of us does not resemble you in
something? Which of us thinks without contradiction
and acts without incoherence? Which of us is
not mad?
(Anatole France, 1886/2008, p. 218)
Introduction
Who is Hamlet? This question has not one answer.
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most manifold man. He is
perhaps the most complex character in the world lit-
erature, so far. He continues to fascinate us all – pro-
fessionals and amateurs, actors and audiences,
researchers and readers. Probably, more is written
about Hamlet than about any other literary figure;
and there are no indications of a decline in interest.
Hamlet cannot be reduced to one formula; you
cannot catch him in a nutshell. Like Alice, he is ‘large
as life, and twice as natural!’ (Carrol, 1872/1996, p.
210). All attempts to formulate him become abstrac-
tions; they overlook shades, complications and contra-
dictions. So, also my attempt to interpret Hamlet will at
best be just another thread in the rich loom of
possibilities that Shakespeare weaved into his tragedy
of Hamlet.
Actually, no one understanding of Hamlet is exhaus-
tive. The understanding of the work expands with time.
A new reading does not replace previous interpreta-
tions. On the contrary, significant new readings con-
tribute to a steadily growing tissue of interpretation
(Aalen, 2015). This is perhaps the main reason for the
never declining interest in the play. Jan Kott puts it
beautifully: ‘Hamlet is like a sponge. Unless produced
in a stylized or antiquarian fashion, it immediately
absorbs all the problems of our time. It is the strangest
play ever written; by its very imperfections’ (Kott,
1965/1991, p. 52).
When Freud (1900) applied the Oedipal scheme
on Hamlet, he disclosed a new structure, a dynamics
inherent in Shakespeare’s text not hitherto noted. For
Freud, the Oedipus complex in its basic form, mur-
derous rivalry towards father and incestuous wishes
towards mother, was universal and ubiquitous; a
dynamics that formed an active, not to say dominat-
ing, force in unconscious phantasy of every human
being. So, the Oedipus complex played a part in
Shakespeare’s inner world, and it was close at hand
to expect this same dynamics to appear in his crea-
tion of Hamlet.

CONTACT Anders Zachrisson anders.zachrisson@psykologi.uio.no

© 2017 The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review
2 A. ZACHRISSON
Though this way of reasoning may limit the scope of
interpretation, it is legitimate – and necessary. We
cannot reach a comprehension of Hamlet by just read-
ing the text. Any interpretation must be based on
preconceptions in one form or another. The tempta-
tion is of course to look for support and overlook
inconsistencies; to use the model as a magnet, attract-
ing what confirms our conception and neglecting what
opposes it.
Before I enter my reading of Hamlet, I will comment
on some issues in the interpretation of fictional works,
especially psychoanalytic readings. I will also comment
on the sources Shakespeare used, when he composed
the tragedy, the circumstances he was writing in, and
give a synopsis of the play, providing us with the
context of the scenes I am going to discuss.
Modes of interpreting works of fiction
The director staging Hamlet has a wide space for inter-
pretation. He is actually expected to use his creativity
and intuition, to emphasize and suppress elements in
the text, to cut out scenes and characters and to present
a subjective, personal reading of the play. The literary
scholar has a narrower space of movement. He has to
conform to the norms and methods of literary criticism
prevailing in his time and for his orientation. The
general demand is usually that interpretations have to
be justified by the text.
Psychoanalytic interpreters of Hamlet are not neces-
sarily restrained by the methods of literary criticism;
they use their conceptual models with various degrees
of freedom from the original text. This may give them a
feeling that they do not just offer a new interpretation
of the play, but that they have found the final inter-
pretation – that they have explained it. Like Freud did
in The Moses of Michelangelo:
Let us consider Shakespeare’s masterpiece, Hamlet, a
play now over three centuries old. I have followed the
literature of psycho-analysis closely, and I accept its
claim that it was not until the material of the tragedy
had been traced back by psycho-analysis to the
Oedipus theme that the mystery of its effect was at
last explained. (Freud, 1914, p. 212)
For the three towering psychoanalytic interpretations
of Hamlet in the middle of the last century, Jones
(1949/1976), Eissler (1971) and Lidz (1975/1990), two
conceptions are central and quite natural as points of
departure for their analyses: the universality of the
Oedipal dynamics and the ubiquitous work of uncon-
scious phantasies in all mental life. However, in apply-
ing these conceptions on the literary character Hamlet,
all three readers have found it necessary to make
another preconception. In the interpretation process,
they treat Hamlet as a real, living person, not as a
character of the stage, created by Shakespeare. Eissler
is quite explicit at this point. First, he underlines the
rich potentiality of Shakespeare’s characters, not the
least Hamlet, making for an almost inexhaustible com-
plexity. And he refers to Heisenberg’s comment on the
subatomic elements of nature as a world of potential-
ities, not a world of facts.
This is in line with Enckell’s conception that meta-
phor is the model of all fiction (Enckell, 2010). Enckell
writes, ‘The truth of metaphor is not actuality, but
possibility. The world of fiction is real as a potential’
(p. 1101).
Eissler however, rejects this conception.
Tempting, however, as it has been to view Hamlet as a
potentiality, the course I shall pursue in what follows is
an old one. Hamlet is for me a living person, whom we
know better – and about whom we know more – than
we do most people in our environment. It is his full-
blooded psychic reality that seems to me to render
legitimate the application to him of the classic psycho-
analytic approach. (Eissler, 1971, p. 36)
The reason for Eissler’s choice seems to be strategic; to
get an increased freedom from the text. It opens up the
possibility to infer unconscious motives, Oedipal feel-
ings, conflicts and dynamics, as if the character was an
analytic patient. It gives access to ‘the classic psycho-
analytic approach’. But this approach ignores a crucial
difference between the analytic patient and the literary
character. Analytic interpretations are hypotheses, sup-
positions that have to be confirmed within the process.
And they have to demonstrate their adequacy by their
effect on the process. The literary character does not
respond to the interpretation. The text is there before
the interpretation, and does not change as a result of it.
In my view, the analyst is free to use the model he
prefers as preconception, but to be valid the interpreta-
tion has to conform to the text.
Eissler’s ‘temptation’ was not, I think, to treat
Hamlet as a potentiality, but on the contrary to treat
him as a living person and gain a relative freedom from
the constraints of a pure text-based analysis. He can, at
least partly, ignore the fact that Hamlet is a character,
created by Shakespeare in a social, cultural and political
context. And he can support his interpretations by
references to experiences from the psychoanalytic con-
sulting room, instead of anchoring them exclusively in
Shakespeare’s text.
This does not mean that Eissler neglects Shakespeare’s
text; on the contrary, he is a thorough reader. And his

monograph is a masterpiece of scholarship and scrutiny.
My reservations concern his epistemological stance; his
rejection of the aesthetic illusion, of the fact that Hamlet
is a character created by Shakespeare, and all we can
know about him is expressed in the text. Instead, he
treats Hamlet as a real person and his interpretation of
Hamlet’s unconscious motives and feelings as if he was a
patient on the coach.
Eissler’s analytic model is mainly ego-
psychological. In a symposium on Eissler’s mono-
graph, published in American Imago, Gedo (1972,
pp. 300–301) argues that Eissler in his analysis ‘has
burst the bounds of ego psychology, to embark on a
more radical enterprise, that of articulating a psycho-
analytic theory of Self’. In the same symposium,
Weissberg (1972) finds Nietzsche’s concept ressenti-
ment being useful to understand the play. In my
view, this underscores the impressive complexity of
Shakespeare’s play. No conceptual model captures all
of Hamlet. Ego psychology, Kohut’s self-psychology,
Nietzsche’s thesis on the Genealogy of Morals, they
all contribute to our understanding, but they do not
make it final.
My project
In my view, Hamlet belongs to the world of fiction and
cannot be analysed as a real person. This means that we
let Hamlet be an expression of Shakespeare’s idea of
what it is to be a human being – we conceive of Hamlet
as a potential person, a person who could have existed,
in Enckell’s formulation (Enckell, 2010). This means
that the author
… is not portraying a person, but composing a person
that could be. And he puts his knowledge about and
comprehension of human nature into the character.
This does not mean that he models the character after
a theory. As an artist, his knowledge is certainly more
intuitive than explicit. His act of creation takes place in
transitional space. (Zachrisson, 2013a, p. 314)
My project is to read Shakespeare’s text
(Shakespeare, 1987) and look at his conception of
psychic life; how his characters, especially Hamlet,
unfold emotions and thoughts, inner conflicts and
dynamics, reflections and self-deceit.
In this inquiry, and in contrast to many other read-
ers, I find a considerable degree of normality in
Hamlet’s reactions and actions. Here, I refrain from a
theory-based definition of ‘normality’ (Zachrisson,
2013b, p. 268), and limit myself to a general formula-
tion: a fairly adequate reality orientation, and a relative
THE SCANDINAVIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC REVIEW 3
absence of dominating neurotic patterns and
inhibitions.
Shakespeare’s text
The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is
Shakespeare’s longest play. It was first staged in 1600 or
1601. There exist three partly different versions of the
text. The first Quarto, also called the bad, came in
1603. It is the shortest, and it is generally believed to
have been written from memory by one of the actors in
the play. The second Quarto was printed in 1604. It is
almost twice the length of the first. It is supposed to be
from Shakespeare’s hand. In 1623, 7 years after
Shakespeare’s death, came the first Folio, as a part of
his collected writings. In certain respects, it differs from
the second Quarto.
Hamlet is a Danish prince, son of the King who died
recently. Shortly after her husband’s death, his mother
married her brother-in-law. Thus, he became the new
king of Denmark. Hamlet is a student in Wittenberg,
but now he is in Elsinore because of his father’s death –
and his mother’s wedding.
Synopsis of the play
In a short summary of the play, I will present the story
unfolding on the stage and point to choices that
Hamlet makes and reflections he has as the play pro-
ceeds. My question is what picture of Hamlet that
emerges through to these choices and the considera-
tions and reasons connected to them.
After the first scene with the soldiers on guard and
the Ghost, we meet the black, mourning Hamlet. But
he is not totally introverted and brooding. When
Claudius addresses him in an intimate, familiar way,
he rejects this invitation with two puns. He is told
about the Ghost and is immediately determined to
join the Guard in the night. The Ghost, in the shape
of his dead father, tells him about his uncle’s atrocity
and demands revenge; Hamlet must kill Claudius.
Hamlet asks himself whether the Ghost actually is
his father and not an evil spirit deceiving him. He is
unsure if he can trust his experience, and concludes
that he is in need of additional proof of the King’s guilt.
To give himself time and divert attention from his
investigation, he decides to ‘put an antic disposition on’
(1.5, p. 179), i.e., to act as a fool, a buffoon. In Saxo
(1994/1893), Shakespeare’s main source for the play,
where the murder is no secret, this makes sense; in the
tragedy less so. Shakespeare however makes use of this
element to show us aspects of Hamlet’s personality,
which otherwise would have remained less clear.
4 A. ZACHRISSON
Behind this mask of insanity, he can also confuse,
hurt and with ironic remarks spit those he is talking to.
He ridicules Polonius and he confuses and hurts
Ophelia. Claudius is not convinced about his insanity
and invites two of Hamlet’s friends from Wittenberg,
Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, to keep an eye on him.
Even Polonius, who accepts his confused state, repeat-
edly notes that there is a peculiar ‘method’ in Hamlet’s
madness. His aggressive behaviour towards Ophelia
has its background. When he meets her, Hamlet under-
stands that she is complying with her father who is
watching them from behind the arras. Deeply
wounded – Shakespeare gives us reasons to believe
that he really loves Ophelia – he hurts her profoundly.
The consequences of his behaviour will be fatal.
When a group of actors suddenly arrives at Elsinore,
Hamlet immediately sees an opportunity which he
seizes. In agreement with the actors, he composes a
short addition to the play they will perform; a scene
presenting the murder of Hamlet’s father, the way the
Ghost had described it. This is supposed to work as a
trap, to test the reaction of Claudius, and he asks his
friend Horatio to keep a sharp eye on the King. The
reaction is clear. The King gets agitated, interrupts the
performance, and walks out with the Queen and his
attendants.
At this point, the relation between Hamlet and
Claudius changes in a drastic way. Hamlet is now
convinced that the Ghost was his father and told the
truth. So now, the way is open for him to revenge his
father. Claudius now knows that Hamlet knows, and
that his position – and his life – is in danger. He is
determined to counteract this threat and makes plans
to send Hamlet to England attended by the friends
from Wittenberg.
The Queen, too, is shocked after the performance
and wants to talk to Hamlet. Polonius, again, arranges
with the King and Queen to hide behind the arras in
the Queen’s chamber, to spy on their meeting. On his
way to the Queen, Hamlet passes a room where
Claudius is kneeling in remorseful prayers. Claudius
does not notice him. This is a key scene for interpreting
Hamlet’s character. Claudius kneels defenceless with
his back to Hamlet, who draws his sword. Then he
hesitates.
Hamlet’s soliloquy, the sword in his hand, considers
the question what will happen if Claudius is killed
while he in his prayers confesses his guilt and asks for
forgiveness. Will he then escape his fate and the hell
Hamlet is keen on sending him to?
Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hint.
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed,
At gaming swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in’t–
(3.3, pp. 88–92)
Hamlet withdraws.
Hamlet’s consideration is in accordance with the
Ghost’s in the first act, that he was killed without
having his foul crimes confessed. There are indications
in the text for an additional reason for hesitation.
Hamlet knows that if he kills Claudius here, when the
King’s misdeed still is unknown, it will be considered
an assassination, committed by the prince who is
deprived of the throne. All through the play, Hamlet
is concerned with the truth being known to the people.
At the same time, he does little to this effect.
In the talk with his mother, the Queen, Hamlet
confronts her with the murder of his father, and hints
at her being an accomplice. Her reaction makes him
convinced that she is ignorant of it. Some heated words
between them scare the spying Polonius and he betrays
himself. Hamlet takes him for Claudius, pierces the
arras with his sword and kills Polonius. We note that
his reaction is quick and impulsive when he thinks the
King is spying on him.
When Claudius is informed about this, he immedi-
ately gives order to Hamlet’s departure to England.
Ostensibly, it is to protect Hamlet for the reactions to
the killing of Polonius. In reality it is, with the help of
the English king, to have Hamlet killed. Hamlet accepts
to be sent to England, even if this, for the time being,
makes it impossible for him to execute his plan. This
point is unclear and not easy to interpret. Does the
accomplishment of the revenge put him in such a
conflict that he passively accepts this postponement
and even exposes him for the possibility of being
killed? Can this be an expression of an ethical stance?
Duty imposes him to avenge his father’s death. At the
same time, manslaughter is ethically problematic.
Psychoanalysis has pointed to the Oedipal dynamics
in Hamlet’s conflict. I wonder if Shakespeare also
gives a hint that the conflict has ethical aspects.
Ophelia, who is in love with Hamlet, has seen him
behave as an insane, rejecting her in a humiliating
manner, denying his warm feelings for her. Later, he
kills her father. She breaks down and commits suicide
by drowning herself.
Laertes, son of Polonius and brother to Ophelia,
confronts the King with Polonius’ death. He is filled
with hate and revengeful feelings towards Hamlet, who
in his eyes bears the guilt of both his father’s and his
sister’s death.
On his way to England, Hamlet sees through the
plan Claudius has launched against him. He gets hold

of the letter to the English king and changes the text.
Now, the fellows that deliver the letter are to be killed,
not Hamlet. When the ship shortly after is attacked by
pirates, Hamlet manages to escape and return to
Denmark. We register that he, without scruples of
conscience, sends his former friends to their death.
They have been deceitful towards him, yes. But the
hesitation he has shown to killing Claudius is not
present here. Has the humanistic ethics given its place
to the natural right of a renaissance prince to get rid of
troublesome subjects?
Back in Elsinore, Hamlet sends a letter to Claudius
and asks for a meeting. The King is shocked and bewil-
dered by the news. But he composes his thoughts. He
realizes that Laertes’ rage can be used to his own advan-
tage. Laertes has a reputation as an excellent fencer. And
quickly the King develops a plan. He will invite Hamlet
to meet Laertes in duel with rapier and dagger, and he
will put his money on Hamlet. In this fight, Laertes shall
use an unbated sword and kill Hamlet by accidence.
Laertes adds to the fraud, declaring that he will anoint
the sword with deadly poison. The King, overdoing
things as we will soon see, prepares a cup of poisoned
wine for Hamlet, marking the cup by putting a pearl in it;
a pearl referred to as a union.
Act 5 begins with Hamlet and Horatio coming to a
churchyard were a grave is being dug. After a conver-
sation between Hamlet and the digger, a royal com-
pany arrives with the coffin. It is Ophelia’s. First
Laertes and then Hamlet jumps into the grave, expres-
sing their love for Ophelia and their sorrow.
The last scene of the play begins by Hamlet receiv-
ing the King’s invitation to a fencing contest with
Laertes. He accepts even if he suspects foul play and
even if Horatio warns him against doing it. Hamlet
clearly sees the similarity between Laertes’ and his
own fate. He sincerely asks Laertes for forgiveness
and expresses his friendship to him. Laertes accepts
Hamlet’s pardon and declares his friendship.
Nevertheless, he carries through his and Claudius’
deceitful plan to kill Hamlet.
In the duel, Hamlet gets a slit by the poisoned
rapier. In a disorderly clash, both drop their rapiers
and interchange them and Laertes too is hurt and
poisoned. The Queen reaches out for the cup of wine.
The King cannot stop her; she drinks and collapses.
Laertes tells Hamlet about the poisoned rapier and
Hamlet perceives the connection. In rage, he thrusts
the rapier in the King’s breast and forces him to drink
of the poisoned wine.
Hamlet is dying and Horatio wants to drink from
the poisoned cup and accompany his friend into
THE SCANDINAVIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC REVIEW 5
death. But Hamlet makes him refrain from that, in
order to make known to the world what actually has
taken place and what lies behind the tragedy enacted
in Elsinore.
Shakespeare’s background for the text
In Hamlet, as in most of his plays, Shakespeare based
his text on existing material and adapted it to his own
purpose. Stories about Hamlet go back to the Middle
Ages. In the twelfth century, they were collected by
Saxo into a comprehensive legend in his Danish
Chronicle, written in Latin (1994/1893). In the six-
teenth century, Belleforest composed a French version
of Saxo. This was translated into English in the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century and published some
years after Shakespeare’s Hamlet was written. There are
indications of an earlier play, an Ur-Hamlet being
performed in London in the 1580s – a revenge tragedy
perhaps written by Thomas Kyd, or even by
Shakespeare himself, but the text has never been recov-
ered (Hibbard, 1987; Wells, 1998).
Already by Saxo we find several elements that are
central in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Belleforest rendered
Saxo, but he also has additions adopted by Shakespeare
(Hibbard, 1987). So, in these sources, we find the
murder of the brother king, the marriage with the
widow, the son who cannot claim the royal throne
and have a murdered father to revenge. We also find
the son’s pretended madness in order to gain time and
to forward his plan; the postponement of the revenge
(in Saxo, Hamlet is too young, immediately to take
action; in Shakespeare, it seems to be intrapsychic
and ethical conflicts troubling him). Hamlet also kills
Polonius, criticizes his mother’s marriage, travels to
England, forges the letter that sends his attendants to
death instead of himself, returns to Denmark and kills
Claudius. All these are elements Shakespeare got from
Saxo and Belleforest.
Belleforest, who was a Christian, could not accept
the magical abilities that Saxo had given his hero. He
therefore explained them ‘by reason of his over-great
melancholy’, making Hamlet particularly sensitive to
impressions from without (Hibbard, 1987, p. 10). In
Shakespeare’s text, in the soliloquy where Hamlet ques-
tions if he can trust the Ghost, he refers to his melan-
choly making him an easy victim to a devil’s fraud
(Shakespeare, 2.2, pp. 588–592). We have to note that
melancholia in those days had a much wider connota-
tion than today’s psychiatric concept. It included most
psychic imbalances and disturbances (see Burton,
1621/1927).
6 A. ZACHRISSON
The murder of the king is no secret in Saxo, as it is
in Hamlet, where this fact is essential in the composi-
tion of the play. In Saxo, Hamlet arrives in England,
marries a princess and cunningly makes plans for his
revenge. Shakespeare’s additions include the pirates’
attack on the ship to England, Hamlet’s quick return
to Elsinore, the Ghost, the play within the play,
Ophelia’s madness and suicide, and her brother
Laertes’ role as his father’s revenger.
So, Shakespeare has adopted many elements from
Saxo and Belleforest. But the composition and the
dynamics of how he uses these elements transform the
story. Everything that makes Hamlet a tragic character is
added by Shakespeare. The old sources told a revenge
story, where external complications formed the base for
the necessary postponement between the murder and
the consummation of the revenge. In Shakespeare, this is
transformed into Hamlet’s inner drama, which we can
follow in his dialogues and soliloquies.
Shakespeare’s – and Hamlet’s – context
Interpreting Hamlet, we have to consider the context of
Shakespeare’s work. He was an actor, and he had invested
money in his theatre. The theatre had its forms and its
requirements; the company had to attract an audience. In
the Elizabethan England, the audience may have been
uneducated in the academic sense, but it was demanding
and experienced. The competition between the theatre
companies was hard; and at the time when Hamlet was
written, the established companies were under pressure
from successful children companies. Tough business was
part of stage set for Shakespeare’s work, and he was quite
productive. In addition to full-time job as actor, and his
business affairs, he wrote several plays a year at this time.
The backcloth also includes the norms and values of
that time – the political, religious and ethical conventions.
Saxo’s Hamlet lived in the Middle Ages. The court in
Elsinore that Shakespeare presented corresponds closer
to Elisabeth I’s, where Shakespeare and his company
often performed. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is prince at a
late Renaissance royal court. So, what are natural values
and reactions for a young prince in that context? We can
imagine Shakespeare’s project: to compose a captivating
drama for his demanding audience in London, and at the
same time unfold his experience and his outlook on
human nature in the characters he puts on the stage.
How is Hamlet presented in Shakespeare’s
text?
Hamlet is a student at Wittenberg. But why has not he
claimed his right to the crown after his father? By Saxo,
he is too young, by Shakespeare it is unclear. His age is
not easy to determine. In the dialogue with the digger
in the fifth act it is said to be 30. Sometimes, but not
always, this seems too much. About 18 may fit to parts
of his behaviour in the beginning of the play. At the
same time, an age of 18 seems too young for his out-
look on life and his background of reflected experience,
giving depth and substance to his personality as the
play evolves. That is how Hamlet appears, beyond clear
definition and delimitation; manifold, complex.
The multiformity that so often confronts us in
Shakespeare was registered by John Keats. He intro-
duced the concept negative capability for something
that in his opinion was essential for artistic creativity
(Keats, 1817/1899). It refers to an ability to endure the
unclear, mysterious and confusing; to stand not to
know. In Keats’ opinion, Shakespeare possessed nega-
tive capability to a high degree, the way he tolerated the
mysterious, the complex, the indeterminate, and
Hamlet stands as a prototypical example for this.
We may note that psychoanalysis (Bion, 1970) has
adopted the concept. In Bion’s thinking, it is connected
to the reverie of the mother, when mother both shares
and takes part in the child’s pains and anxieties and at
the same time lets the child keep part of its autonomy
and freedom to choose its own way. Also in the con-
tainment of the patient’s unbearable psychic pain, the
analyst’s negative capability plays a part (Bion, 1962).
From the very beginning, Hamlet impresses us by
his intelligence and his wit. His first rejoinder is a witty
response to the King’s familiar address: ‘But now, my
cousin Hamlet, and my son–’. Hamlet responds ‘A little
more than kin, and less than kind’, making a pun on
‘kind’. And when the King asks him ‘How is it that the
clouds still hang on you?’, he responds ‘Not so, my
lord, I am too much i’th’ sun’; referring both to his
mother’s ‘too sunny’ wedding soon after the funeral
and making a pun on ‘son/sun’ (1.2, pp. 65–67). And
one of his last rejoinders must be among the most
acrid, wild wits in all literature. He understands that
he is deadly wounded by the poisoned rapier and so is
Laertes; his mother is dying from the poisoned wine
with the pearl called a union; and all this is designed by
the King to have Hamlet killed. He forces the King to
drink of the wine: ‘Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous,
damnèd Dane, /Drink off this potion. Is thy union
here?/Follow my mother’ (5.2, pp. 276–279).
When his fellows from Wittenberg visit him, they
are warmly received. But very soon Hamlet realizes that
they are sent for by the King, to keep an eye on him
and to understand the reasons behind his melancholy.
And when they go on with that after he has disclosed
them, he loses his patience. Hamlet forces Guildenstern

to play the flute, and when he refuses, telling that he
does not know how to play it, Hamlet says with an
irony that is killing:
It is as easy as lying … how unworthy a thing you
make of me. You would play upon me … do you think
that I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me
what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you
cannot play upon me. (3.2, pp. 340–342)
Only the King, Claudius, is a match for Hamlet. Not by
his intelligence, but by being resolute and energetic,
combined with realism and suspicion. But even if the
play appears to be a fight between Claudius and
Hamlet, this is not the central conflict. Like Oedipus
in Sophocles’ King Oedipus Hamlet is his own antago-
nist (Zachrisson, 2013a). In both these tragedies, the
‘real’ drama is enacted within the inner world of the
protagonist. That is the place where the opposing
forces clash against each other: and in both cases, the
elementary relationships within the family and to one-
self are at stake.
Many scholars are of the opinion that Hamlet is
thinking too much, and because of this exaggerated
reflection he is unable to accomplish his purpose. He
is a ruminator and philosopher out of touch with
reality. It is not easy to see in what way the text
would confirm this description. Actually, the text
gives a different impression. After about 4 h of tumults
on the stage, in real time a month or 2, we can tell eight
dead people, Hamlet included, and he has, directly or
indirectly, been involved in the death of five or six of
them. As a proof of inhibition to act, this is not a
convincing record. Reading the text carefully, we can
see that only Hamlet accuses himself of too much
thinking and lack of action, no one else. On the con-
trary, the realistic Claudius has deep respect for what
Hamlet might be able to accomplish. His respect is
such that the very moment he realizes that Hamlet
knows about his murder of his brother, he arranges
Hamlet’s departure for England.
Hamlet’s ‘antic disposition’
Saxo’s Hamlet pretended to be mad, and Shakespeare’s
Hamlet tells Horatio that he will do that. Nevertheless,
for 400 years, the question of his actual madness has
been discussed. And Lidz (1975/1990) puts all his pres-
tige as psychiatrist and psychoanalyst behind his appeal
that we accept Hamlet’s real madness. So, what does
the text tells us about the state of Hamlet’s mind. The
question must not be whether he is mad in the sense of
being temporary out of his mind – we all may be when
THE SCANDINAVIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC REVIEW 7
things go wrong – but whether he is psychotic in one
way or another, the way Shakespeare presents him.
In my view, he is not, and I will consider one of
Hamlet’s ‘nonsense’ rejoinders to argue my case. He
has disclosed the mission of Guildenstern and
Rosencrantz. He has realized that they are sent for by
the king, to keep an eye on him. Nevertheless, he
shakes hands with them and wishes them welcome; it
is quite clear, though, that he does not trust them. He
adds ‘But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are
deceived’. Guildenstern asks ‘In what, my dear lord?’
and Hamlet says ‘I am but mad north-north-west;
when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a
handsaw’ (2, 2, pp. 370–374).
A common reading of this is that being ‘mad north-
north-west’ is to be just a little out of line, and knowing
a hawk from a handsaw, you are not completely mad.
At the same time, the nonsense quality of the words
indicates the opposite meaning, a lack of common
reality contact. We may think that this is how
Shakespeare lets Hamlet appear with an antic disposi-
tion, fostering the impression that he is out of his
mind; in the way he announced to Horatio he would
behave, after meeting the Ghost.
However, digging just a little deeper into the words
of Hamlet reveals a more complex message. ‘Hawk’ has
a double meaning; it is not only a bird, but also the tool
that the bricklayer uses to handle plaster, i.e., a tool in
line with a handsaw. And in Shakespeare’s time, ‘hand-
saw’ was a corruption of ‘harnshaw’, meaning heron.
So, indirectly, Hamlet says that he can know a tool and
a bird from other tools and birds. And he knows who is
the hunter (the hawk) and the hunted (the heron).
Lidz, who discusses this point (Lidz, 1975/1990, p.
24), adds a detail from Plutarch, whose writings
Shakespeare knew well, that in ancient Egypt, the
hawk represented the north wind and the heron the
south wind. We are tempted to quote Polonius’ obser-
vation once more, ‘Though this be madness, yet there
is method in’t’ (2, 2, pp. 204–205). And we note the
subtle means Shakespeare uses to substantiate the
impression of Hamlet’s madness; at the same time as
he tells us another story. This is a multilayered, witty
way to pretend madness.
Hamlet’s conflicts
So, what is Hamlet’s inner conflict? Why is he hesitat-
ing? What prevents him from taking his revenge? His
father’s sudden death has made him suspicious, and his
suspicion is confirmed by the Ghost. But can he trust
the Ghost, or is it an evil spirit deceiving him to take an
unwarranted revenge? This question, both an ethical
8 A. ZACHRISSON

and a psychological one, is at first the reason for not Revenge – as a motor for the drama
immediately bringing about the revenge that the Ghost
Plays where revenge is the motor for the intrigue has
repeatedly asks him to take.
to solve a problem: What will explain the postpone-
Already by Homer the Olympian gods act as spokes-
ment from the first act where the misdeed calling for
men for the inner, conflicting feelings and impulses of
revenge takes place to the last act where the revenge
heroes. When Achilles is in doubt about how to act,
is executed? Usually, entanglements and external
Homer lets Athena come up behind him and instigate
complications prevent the hero from doing what has
him. This is a way in which this literature illustrates
to be done. And these complications form an enter-
inner processes (Aalen & Zachrisson, 2013). If we read
taining story leading to the grand finale – a composi-
Shakespeare with this in mind, Hamlet’s doubt con-
tion analogous to the concluding revolver duel in the
cerning the authenticity of the Ghost is an expression
classical Western film. Hamlet has a different struc-
of self-reflection. He asks himself if his suspicion that
ture, even if it is a thrilling play. Hamlet does not
Claudius stands behind his father’s death is justified, as
seem to be driven by an urge for revenge at any
the Ghost states; or if it is his own sorrow and rage
price. He is troubled by a question of knowledge.
calling for revenge, which ‘constructs’ proofs against
He needs to be convinced of Claudius’ guilt and be
Claudius. ‘O my prophetic soul!/My uncle!’ is his
sure that the revenge is justified. However, after hav-
response to the Ghost’s disclosure (1.5, pp. 40–41).
ing staged the play within the play he knows for sure.
Shakespeare lets Hamlet take his doubt about him-
After that, it is more difficult to understand why he
self seriously and decides to seek further proof for
hesitates. We can understand his reasons for not
Claudius’ guilt. In my view, this is not the expression
killing Claudius kneeling in prayer. But he renounces
of an exaggerated, paralysing thinking, but of a critical
his upper hand by letting Claudius send him to
view of truth and knowledge; an expression of a well-
England without any counteraction. When he is
developed self-reflection.
back in Elsinore, after Ophelia’s funeral, he accepts
Hamlet has one more reason for not taking immedi-
an invitation to a duel with Laertes, whose father he
ate action. Repeatedly, he underscores the importance
has killed; a duel arranged by Claudius, who wants
of making the truth publicly known. If what has taken
him dead. He gives away the initiative to Claudius.
place is not known among people, he will be a mur-
Why? Where is now his urge to revenge his father?
derer, not a man who revenges with a just cause. It is
Such is Hamlet. The text is open to interpretations
clear to Hamlet that Claudius’ guilt needs more solid
and does not close the door for new ones.
proofs than what is provided by the sole reference to a
Shakespeare’s negative capability was well developed.
Ghost appearing in the night.
The Oedipal interpretation points to one part of his
In the scene in the Queen’s chamber, where Hamlet
inner world, but it does not exhaust it. His ethical
accuses his mother of being Claudius’ accomplice, the
stance, too, seems to be compound. Is Shakespeare’s
Ghost reappears, this time dressed in a nightgown; and
Hamlet an ethically conscious person; one who does
this time, only Hamlet can see and hear him. The
not easily break the fifth commandment? He is deter-
Ghost asks Hamlet not to forget and gives the reason
mined to kill Claudius. But revenge is to take an eye for
for appearing: This visitation
an eye. It is to counter evil with evil. ‘The time is out of
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. joint. O curséd spite, that ever I was born to set it
But look, amazement on thy mother sit, right!’ he says (1.5, p. 196). However, we have seen
O step between her and her fighting soul! him kill Polonius by accident without remorse or guilt
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. feelings, merely repenting the deed as one would regret
Speak to her, Hamlet! (3.4, pp. 103–108). a mishap. He does not hesitate, in cold blood, to send
his fellows from Wittenberg to death, after it has
In the dialogue with his mother, Hamlet is convinced
become clear to him that they were engaged to bring
of her innocence.
about his death.
It is not easy to interpret the differences between the
From the text, we cannot know whether his friends
two scenes with the Ghost; in the first clad in armour
knew the King’s real intention behind the journey to
and visible for all present, in the second in nightgown
England, or if they thought they would just accompany
and visible only for Hamlet. But we get the impression
Hamlet to England to take care of his safety. For
that the Ghost both times confirms Hamlet’s suspicions
Hamlet, they were busybodies and the King’s henchmen,
and half-thought thinking.

and he becomes more and more scornful towards them.
When he is confusing Rosencrantz, who wants him to
tell where to find Polonius’s body, and Rosencrantz says
‘I understand you not, my lord’. Hamlet answers in a
directly condescending manner: ‘I am glad of it. A
knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear’ (4.2, pp. 20–23).
Irony – double levels of meaning
When he lets Hamlet pretend madness, Shakespeare can
play with double meanings and irony and with the ten-
sion between literal and ironic meaning. We can com-
pare Shakespeare’s irony with Sophocles’. Oedipus is in
an ironic situation, which for the audience has two levels.
They see both Oedipus’ reality and another one, which in
a tragic way changes his world. Sophocles’ irony is a
double exposure of the reality (Zachrisson, 2013a). By
pretending madness, it is Hamlet himself who actively
and consciously produces ironic ambiguities and ten-
sions in his manner of talking.
Hamlet’s soliloquies
In Hamlet, Shakespeare several times uses soliloquies to
deepen his characters’ inner life – especially of course
Hamlet’s. In his first musings, he is quite self-critical,
accusing himself of being weak and paralysed, ‘O what
a rogue and peasant slave am I!’ (2.2, p. 538). He
describes his lack of vitality and his melancholy, ‘I
have of late … lost all my mirth, forgone all custom
of exercises …’ (2.2, pp. 293–295). First, he complains
about that suicide is forbidden. Then, in the monolo-
gue To be and not to be, it is our lack of knowledge
about life after death that makes us refrain from suicide
and instead endure the calamities of life. When he
accepts the invitation to the duel with Laertes, which
he thinks is a trap; his attitude to death is changed:
We defy augury; there is a special providence in the fall
of a sparrow. If it be now, it is not to come; if it be not
to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will
come. The readiness is all. (5.2, pp. 166–169)
In my opinion, it is a mistake to use Hamlet’s formula-
tions about himself as a basis for ߢdiagnosing’ him.
These descriptions express his moods and his efforts to
understand himself and what is going on. He is mourn-
ing his father’s death; he is upset about his mother’s
hasty marriage with his uncle; and he is repeatedly met
with fraud and perfidy. Only Horatio behaves as a
dependable friend towards him. Thus, he is thrown
between the moods he expresses.
Referring to Meg Harris Williams (2012), we may
perhaps say that he appears as a bright and clever
THE SCANDINAVIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC REVIEW 9
adolescent in the beginning of the play, while he
expresses a much more profound experience of life at
the end.
Oedipality in Oedipus the King and in Hamlet
Freud’s, and after him Jones’, interpretation is that
Hamlet in his own mind has the impulse to carry out
the same misdeed he wishes to revenge, the killing of
his father. This (unconscious) Oedipal thought
deprives him of his power to act. In Shakespeare’s
text, we do not have the patient’s responses to inter-
pretations of such dynamics. We have only the text. So,
what does the text tell us about Hamlet’s inner drama,
and Shakespeare’s conception of this dynamics?
The first thing we note is that Hamlet has a
boundless admiration for his father. It seems like
an idealization. On the other hand, he describes
Claudius as his father’s very opposite: ‘My father’s
brother, but no more like my father/Than I to
Hercules’ (1.2, pp. 153–154). This seems like a split
of Hamlet’s internalized father object into an idea-
lized, dead father and a devalued stepfather. If this
has been an element in Shakespeare’s (intuitive) con-
ception of the family dynamics, Hamlet appears as a
more direct Oedipal play then King Oedipus. Hamlet
hates his stepfather and is prepared to kill him, and
he feels that Claudius has taken the place belonging
to him – on the Danish throne and also in his
mother’s heart.
He is respectful towards his mother, but does the
text give indications to the effect that he has erotic
feelings for her? The text does dwell upon the sexual
relation between Claudius and Gertrud. Both the
Ghost and Hamlet have much to say about it. After
Hamlet’s meeting with his mother, he accepts that
she is innocent in her husband’s death. Then he asks
her to stay away from the conjugal bed. But we have
to remember that he, shortly before, has learned
about the murder, and that his mother now also
knows about it.
In Lidz’s interpretation (Lidz, 1975/1990),
Hamlet’s feelings of being deceived and dropped by
his mother overshadow his reactions to his father’s
death. Be that as it may, his mother’s sexual life is
close at hand in Hamlet’s thoughts, and he reacts
with detestation. Also his dialogues with Ophelia are
filled with sexual allusions, sometimes directly
aggressive, sometimes mocking and sometimes per-
haps flirting. Both in their first meeting in the play
and in the scene before the play within the play, he
is definitely rude to her.
10 A. ZACHRISSON
Presupposing that Hamlet is in love with Ophelia,
his learning about Claudius’s murder must affect his
relation to her deeply. She is the devoted daughter of
the murderer’s trusted counsellor. Could their love
handle such a situation? These circumstances, in
addition to his suspicion that her father spies on
them at their first meeting, give a kind of rationale
for his behaviour, even if we still find it puerile and
unacceptable.
Both Sophocles and Shakespeare based their tra-
gedies on older traditions and sources, which they
adapted to their own purpose. In Oedipus the King,
the ancient myth of the son killing his father and
marrying his mother forms the backcloth for a
drama of self-knowledge. The motor of the tragedy
is not that Oedipus hates his father and loves his
mother. It is his forceful but conflict-laden search,
first for the murderer of the old king, and then,
when the light falls on him, for his own identity
(Zachrisson, 2013a).
The theme of Hamlet is a son’s hate of and intention
to kill his stepfather, out of respect and love of his
(biological) father. Now, what about his relation to
his mother? First he suspects her to be an accomplice
in the murder. After their meeting, he accepts her
innocence and regains, at least partly, his respect for
her. However, her (in Hamlet’s eyes incestuous) sexual
relationship to Claudius is all the time close at hand in
his thoughts. This may indicate an erotic element in his
relation to her.
Concluding reflection, who is Hamlet?
Hamlet is irrational, impulsive, emotional, unreason-
able, inhibited, brooding suspicious, revengeful, con-
demning and much more. But he is all this in a
human, I would even say ‘normal’ way. There is
nothing convincingly pathological or constricted in
his character. What perhaps is ‘un-normal’ in him is
his intelligence – his wit.
In my reading of the text, Oedipal dynamics is one
element affecting Hamlet’s decisions and actions. But it
is not the only factor, and it is not evident that it, in
Shakespeare’s mind, was the main one. Both rational
and ethical considerations seem to play a part beside
the Oedipal element.
Hamlet appears as an individual striving to keep in
touch with real life – like the rest of us. We have to yield
to the richness, the variability and the surprising manifold
of his character.
The world he lives in, however, appears quite
mad. His uncle has killed his father and tries to kill
him; his mother marries her brother-in-law only a
month or 2 after the death of her husband; his fellow
students spy on him and so does his sweetheart’s
father.
I am ready for my preliminary contribution to the
countless number of Hamlet interpretations: Hamlet –
the way Shakespeare presented him – an intelligent,
reflected, resourceful, fairly normal prince in late
Renaissance, who has to wrestle with a madhouse of
political intrigues, family murders and deceitful
friends.
Acknowledgement
This project has been generously supported by a grant
from the legacy of Ellen-Margrethe and Finn Askevold.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
author.
Biographical note
Fil Lic. Associated professor emeritus. Member and past
president of the Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society
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