Hamlet and the Oedipus Complex

HAMLET AND THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the most important books of the English and world literature and the main character Hamlet has inspired various numbers of romances and has also interested the world’s psychology. Hamlet in fact is one of the first characters that can be defined “real“ because is vexed by contrasting feelings, which makes him one of the most human characters in literature. This in particular interested the psychologist and especially Sigmund Freud; In fact analyzing Hamlet he found out a major themes about this character and this book: the Oedipus complex, which would affect Hamlet and eventually his madness.

The Oedipus complex is a group of largely unconscious ideas and feelings which center around the desire to possess the parent of the opposite sex and eliminate the parent of the same sex and is usually common in kids and can sometimes be manifested also in adults (as Hamlet). The complex is named after Sophocles’ character Oedipus, who kills his father and marries his mother in the book King Oedipus.

After reviewing various literary theories, Freud concludes that Hamlet has an "Oedipal desire for his mother and the subsequent guilt [is] preventing him from murdering the man [Claudius] who has done what he unconsciously wanted to do than the sinner whom he is to punish”.

There have been many theories about Oedipus complex and ,as said before, people think this could also degenerate in hate for the parent of the same sex and, as in some of most of the famous books in literature, end with the parricide, the murder of the parent of the same sex(usually the father because is more a male complex).

In fact the Oedipus complex and the Parricide are not just two major themes in Hamlet but also in the world literature. Freud in fact identifies the parricide, also called Vatermord, as the common element and theme of the three greatest masterpieces of the human literature, the Oedipus King by...