Log in Free trial  Resituating Freud's Hamlet  Article excerpt
Hamlet's inner conflict, though rich in oedipal imagery, is
dramatized as the product of his immediate situation rather than
of childhood trauma. It revolves around the old chivalric code
of blood revenge and honor-at-all costs, and is implicit in the
text, hence not "repressed" by the protagonist. Hamlet's
prolonged wrestling with this conflict climaxes in a soliloquy
that scathingly attacks the code's exemplification in
Fortinbras, leaving the issue of revenge at an impasse. To
prepare his hero for the act of killing Claudius, Shakespeare
deleted and altered some crucial passes (as we see by assessing
the differences between the Second Quarto and Folio texts). The
effect of these changes is to diminish Hamlet's turmoil by
introducing evidence of his psychological growth, evidence that
Freud and Ernest Jones ignored and might well have considered.
keywords: Hamlet, honor, Freud, Jones  url:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2007_gordon01.sht