The Hamlet Complex
Gertrude, the queen of Denmark, widow to Hamlet Sr., wife to Claudius, and mother to Hamlet, is a character of multitudes on page and onstage. A month after her husband’s death, she marries her brother-in-law, a choice highly contested by her son. To many audience members, Hamlet Jr.’s obsession with his mother’s sex life is unnerving and distatestful - no one watches the almost-three-hour play to listen to a son speak about the “incestuous pleasures” of his mother’s bed. However, this concept is not a new one, the mother-son sex dynamic introduced with the first tragedy, Oedipus Rex, written by the Greek playwright Sophocles. Coined the “Oedipus Complex” by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the sexual attraction of a son to …show more content…
The Oedipus Complex, simplified, is inherent in all young boys, ages 2-5, that have been raised in a loving, nontraumatic manner. However, Freud warrants extensions to this period following times of emotional distress, creating a time of “infantile neurosis.” This then calls into question the circumstances of Hamlet’s childhood. He seems to revere his father in the play, “A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man” (3.4.70-73). Perhaps a forgotten incident in his youth may have created a period of extended infantile neurosis, which is not out of character for Hamlet when one considers his mental state throughout the …show more content…
Instead, the appropriate reaction has become to address the topic as a joke, repressing “natural” effects of the Oedipus Complex from a young age. Much like Hamlet, teens of today seem to be experiencing a period of extended infantile neurosis, applicable to many other aspects of their lives outside of their perception of their mothers. They are dependent on the approval of their parents even after leaving the nest, seeking validation where it is no longer
Gertrude, the queen of Denmark, widow to Hamlet Sr., wife to Claudius, and mother to Hamlet, is a character of multitudes on page and onstage. A month after her husband’s death, she marries her brother-in-law, a choice highly contested by her son. To many audience members, Hamlet Jr.’s obsession with his mother’s sex life is unnerving and distatestful - no one watches the almost-three-hour play to listen to a son speak about the “incestuous pleasures” of his mother’s bed. However, this concept is not a new one, the mother-son sex dynamic introduced with the first tragedy, Oedipus Rex, written by the Greek playwright Sophocles. Coined the “Oedipus Complex” by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the sexual attraction of a son to …show more content…
The Oedipus Complex, simplified, is inherent in all young boys, ages 2-5, that have been raised in a loving, nontraumatic manner. However, Freud warrants extensions to this period following times of emotional distress, creating a time of “infantile neurosis.” This then calls into question the circumstances of Hamlet’s childhood. He seems to revere his father in the play, “A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man” (3.4.70-73). Perhaps a forgotten incident in his youth may have created a period of extended infantile neurosis, which is not out of character for Hamlet when one considers his mental state throughout the …show more content…
Instead, the appropriate reaction has become to address the topic as a joke, repressing “natural” effects of the Oedipus Complex from a young age. Much like Hamlet, teens of today seem to be experiencing a period of extended infantile neurosis, applicable to many other aspects of their lives outside of their perception of their mothers. They are dependent on the approval of their parents even after leaving the nest, seeking validation where it is no longer