Custom written essays - Hamlet – the psychological playThe psychological dimension of the Shakespearean drama Hamlet remains undisputed by most literary critics. Let us explore different points of view on the subject in this essay. Strangely, in his essay "Oerdoing Termagant", Howard Felperin states that the closet scene does NOT reveal the hero's state of mind in any remarkable way: Despite its 19th-century appeal, according to 20th-century characterological and psychoanalytic critiques, the The closet scene tells us little about Hamlet's supposed state of mind. For most of the scene he speaks not at all like a son to his mother, but like a preacher to a sinner, not out of personal feeling but out of impersonal indignation. (102-103) The psychological aspect of Hamlet that emerges most clearly is his melancholy. Lily B. Campbell in “Grief That Leads to Tragedy” explains: If my analysis is correct, then Hamlet becomes a study in the passion of grief. In Hamlet himself, it is a passion which is not moderated by reason, a passion which does not yield to the consolations of philosophy. And being an intemperate and excessive sorrow, Hamlet's sorrow is therefore the sorrow which makes the memory fade, which makes reason fail to direct the will, which makes him guilty of sloth. . . . (95-96) His first soliloquy, about his mother, is quite depressing: Should I remember? well, she would cling to him, as if her appetite had increased because of what he fed on: and yet, at the end of a month - let me not think about it - - Frailty, your name is female ! (1.2) Soon Horatio and Marcellus...... middle of paper ...... shit, Vivante asserts, "consciousness" is complete, definitive, self-evident, and not a facade for more limited elements. Shakespeare “does not replace consciousness with the subconscious, the unconscious, complexes, instincts, the subliminal”. (11)Gunnar Bokland in "The Judgment in Hamlet" explains Shakespeare's attraction to the psychological dimension of drama: In the tragedy of Hamlet, Shakespeare is not concerned with the question of whether bloody vengeance is justified or not; it is only mentioned once and very late by the protagonist (v,ii,63-70) and never seriously considered. It is the dramatic and psychological situation rather than the moral question which seems to have attracted Shakespeare, and he chose to develop it, despite the difficult to digest and sometimes somewhat obscure elements that it could involve.. [. . .] . (118-19)