Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Melancholia in Hamlet

Sigmund Freud’s 1917 essay “Mourning and Melancholia” distinguishes the latter condition as a form of pathological mourning characterized by extreme self-reproach. Melancholia occurs as a result of identification with an abandoned object, leading to the regression of libidinal energy into the ego. William Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet exhibits qualities consistent with this type of melancholia. Several Freudian critics have previously examined the development of melancholic symptoms in Hamlet, and have explored possible causes for his condition. According to Ernest Jones in Hamlet and Oedipus, such causes center around Hamlet’s repressed Oedipal desires. Neil Friedman and Richard M. Jones suggest that personal setbacks also shape Hamlet’s mental state in “On the Mutuality of the Oedipus Complex Notes on the Hamlet Case.” For example, Claudius thwarts Hamlet from acquiring the throne while also incestuously marrying Gertrude, but Hamlet rejects Claudius as his father-in-law. Julia Reinhard Lupton and Kenneth Reinhard’s After Oedipus: Shakespeare in Psychoanalysis applies Freud’s essay to Hamlet’s character and observes the projection of his damaged ego onto the world around him. Building on these writers’ ideas and incorporating examples of Hamlet’s self-loathing, this essay argues that mourning the loss of both his father and his stable family unit results in Hamlet’s descent into melancholia.