Hamlet Themes

Question 1

Hamlet and Gertrude

Answer 1

‘the main psychological task that Hamlet seems to set himself is not to avenge his father’s death but to remake his mother: to remake her in the image of the Virgin Mother who could guarantee his father’s purity’ (Adelman)

Question 2

the play and religious connotations

Answer 2

‘Christian morality-plays used symbolism to propound religious lessons’ (Stagman)

Question 3

Hamlet and impulsiveness

Answer 3

‘when he does at last kill Claudius (…) he does so suddenly, without forethought’ (Ryan)

Question 4

hamlet and his postponing/procrastinating tendencies

Answer 4

‘the main cause of the whole tragic train of events is Hamlet’s compulsion to postpone’ (Ryan)

Question 5

Hamlet and the Oedipus complex

Answer 5

‘the unconscious source of Hamlet’s suicidal melancholy and pathological reluctance to avenge his father must be his repressed desire for his mother’ (killing Claudius is like killing his Oedipal self) (Ryan)

Question 6

Hamlet as the Renaissance man and SS creating a mock revenge tragedy criticising SS society and their need for revenge

(hence death at end of play to clear the slate and put a permanent end to the cycle of revenge and death, also showing how nothing good comes of it)

Answer 6

Hamlet ‘refuses to play the stock role in which he’s been miscast by the world he happens to inhibit’ (Ryan)
–
emphasised by tragic revenger foils Laertes and Fortinbras who believe in revenge