Freud Interpretation Of Hamlet Essay, Research Paper

Before we begin, I would like to congratulate you all on getting selected for

the various parts in this production of Hamlet. My name is Glenn Close, and I

will be directing this production from today until it closes in Tokyo next May.

I have played the role of Gertrude, as many of you know, in the Hollywood

production starring Mel Gibson. I also played Ophelia twice in high school and

once my senior year at UCLA. This is my favorite Shakespeare play, one of the

best of all time. Recently I was reintroduced to Freud?s notable commentary on

Shakespeare and his relation to Sophocles in The Interpretation of Dreams. From

this I have pulled the essential pages and copied them for your perusal. In

fact, each of you received those pages one week ago and were asked to come

prepared to discuss its important aspects and to help me create a clearer vision

of what we can do to make our Hamlet more like the one that Freud envisioned in

1899. As the director of this play, I have gathered you all here today to

explain what this particular version of Hamlet is best representing. I decided

to try to help Hamlet become more overtly repressed by his intellect so that

Freud?s vision can come to light in the minds of our audiences. In my humble

opinion, no single director has yet made a good project out of exploring fully

the impact of repression on the individual through the impotence of a paralyzed

Hamlet. There is a reason for this. Many directors have tried and failed for the

following reason: they were all men. Only a woman with the understanding of what

it means to be sexually craved by her son can do justice to the directorship in

the light of what Freud understood. I want this version of Hamlet to represent a

modern day sexual scenario. By changing a few scenes, I can show Hamlet?s

repressed emotions toward Gertrude, and his resentment toward Claudius. I want

Hamlet almost to give in to his feelings for his mother due to her persuasion. I

will be directing most of my focus on Hamlet. The setting will be present day

Athens, Greece. I chose Athens because Freud refers to Oedipus Rex as the basis

of Hamlet?s character. Since Oedipus is Greek, putting Hamlet in Athens makes

the connection between these characters more direct. There are two reasons why I

moved the play to the present day. The first one is the difficulty that modern

audiences have with Shakespearean English. My goal is get the audience to hear

Freud?s Hamlet as clearly as possible without getting lost in Shakespearean

language. The second reason has to do with the poor habits of American theater

audiences. If the play takes place in another time period than the present, the

audience members tend to see the lessons of the story as unrelated to them. Only

in bringing the play to the modern day can Freud?s lessons connect directly

with the repressed lives of the modern theatergoer. I also feel that most men

living in the twenty-first century will not admit that during their formative

years, sexual desires arose and were naturally directed towards their mother,

the object of their most fond love. According to Sigmund Freud, the story of

Oedipus Rex and the story of Hamlet have the same underlying theme. In both

stories, the character of the prince, Oedipus and Hamlet respectively, is caught

in Freud?s Oedipus Complex: ?Being in love with one parent and hating the

other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses

which is formed at that time [childhood] and which is of such importance in

determining the symptoms of later neurosis.? (294) Hamlet?s neurosis is

manifested by his inability to act. The story of Oedipus is different from that

of Hamlet because Hamlet never acts on the feelings he has for his mother and

never avenges his father?s death. Hamlet represses the feelings he has for his

mother, and feels that if he kills his father, he is killing the embodiment of

his own repressed wishes. According to Freud, ? Hamlet represents the type of

man whose power of direct action is paralyzed by an excessive development of his

intellect.? (298) By altering certain scenes, I can bring the repressed Hamlet

out and show our modern viewers that dealing with these Freudian issues is

acceptable in today?s society. At this point I would like to look at a couple

of specific key portions of scenes in order to show you what I mean by bringing

the Freud out in Hamlet. Let?s turn our text to act three scene four, please.

I would like Hamlet and Gertrude to try out a few key lines here. This is the

scene where Hamlet and the Queen Gertrude are in the Queen?s private chambers.

Hamlet, Gertrude, hurry up on stage here so that we can get to the heart of what

Freud was talking about in his treatise. (Changing focus back to the group, Glen

Close continues) Hamlet walks into the bedroom and begins to speak with a

?wicked tongue? to his mother. Hamlet hears a noise behind the curtain, and

with no hesitation, kills Polonius. This is done out of full rage, with the

hopes that the King was behind the curtain. With little regret, Hamlet continues

his conversation with his mother. This brings us to line182. Hamlet, I want you

to grab your mother and hold her in your arms and shake her; let your eyes shine

with lust for your mother while your body keeps shaking and staying away from

her. These words of Hamlet?s are full of his neurosis, ?Not this, by no

means, that I bid you do: Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed,? Hamlet,

please stop for a moment. Everyone, notice that Hamlet wants his mother to stay

out of sexual contact with his uncle. That is the driving force of his hatred.

Obviously, Freud?s complex is strong at work in this scene. As this scene

continues, it is amazing how much sexual imagery Hamlet uses. He is obsessed

with wanting his mother, but his intellect won?t let him act. Hamlet, I want

you to reach over and pinch Gertrude?s cheeks as you say the next line.

Don?t be shy, really give your mom a nice fat pinch. Continue please. ?Pinch

wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,? Hamlet, pretend to kiss Gertrude as

you say this next line. ?And let him, for a pair of reechy kiss,? Hamlet, as

you say the next line, touch Gertrude?s neck with a slight touch. ?Or

paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,? Now Hamlet, I want you to

reach over towards Gertrude and act as if you were going to kiss her but back

away as you skip directly to line 197. ?And break your own neck down.? Now

Gertrude replies in lines198-200. Gertrude, after you read these lines, reach

over to Hamlet and attempt to kiss him. Hamlet, I want to back away in fright,

proving Freud?s point that Hamlet cannot act because of the modern repression

of action by the mind. ?Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, And

breath of life, I have no life to breathe/ What thou hast said to me.? It

seems that Gertrude can?t understand Hamlet?s love for her. Therefore she is

dumbfounded by his words. Hamlet, reply to Gertrude in line 201 and after you

reply, walk out of the room. ?I must to England; you know that?? The acting

of these scenes leads us to Freud?s interpretation of the sexual interactions

between Hamlet and Gertrude. According to Freud, there is a ?distaste for

sexuality expressed by Hamlet.? Hamlet, it is important that you physically

show your neurotic distaste for sexuality in all scenes with either Gertrude or

Ophelia throughout the play. The next scene I would like to draw attention to is

Act Five, scene two, lines 326-339. In this last scene, a poison ends up killing

the Queen, the King, and Laertes. Hamlet witnesses his mother?s death and

learns that his uncle has been planning his murder. Once the Queen is dead,

Hamlet is able to act out the feelings he has repressed throughout the entire

play. In these next few lines Hamlet is speaking to his uncle, but a cleverly

placed mirror reveals to the audience that he is also speaking to himself.

?Here, thou incestuous, murd?rous, damned Dane.? Hamlet is correct in his

accusation of his uncle, but also of himself. Remember what Freud said about our

beloved Hamlet, ?Thus, the loathing which should drive him on to revenge is

replaced in him by self-reproaches.? (229) Self-reproaches are what is

stopping Hamlet from acting. Continue. ?Heaven make thee free of it! I follow

thee. I am dead. Wretched Queen, adieu!? Hamlet, I want you to lean over and

kiss your deceased mother on the lips after the completion of the next line.

?You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience

to this act, Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death, Is strict in his

arrest) O, I could tell you-? Hamlet finally grasps his own neurosis but has

no time to explain it to us. Carry on, ?But let it be. I am dead.? As Hamlet

stares death in the eye, he is finally able to stare his incestuous feelings in

the eye. By looking in the mirror, he is looking inside himself. Hamlet sees

himself as a hopelessly trapped man, trapped in his own mind. I chose these

particular scenes because they both were dramatically inclined. These two scenes

have been used for many interpretations of the production. For Freudian

purposes, I chose to have the Queen?s age and Hamlet?s age to be within

fifteen years of each other. There are a few reasons why Hamlet is wearing tight

leather pants, a slightly unbuttoned iridescent shirt, and black boots and why

Gertrude is wearing a tight, low-cut red dress, with black pumps. I think these

clothes will enhance the psychosexual image that Freud was able to take away

from the play and will also compliment the modern time period. The extreme

closeness in age between Hamlet and Gertrude will also accentuate the Freudian

concepts that I am best trying to represent. With the loss of his mother, and

death upon him, Hamlet is finally able to carry out his father?s (the ghost)

wishes by murdering his father?s murderer (his uncle, Claudius). Hamlet?s

ability to act becomes feasible in the last minutes of his life. As a woman, it

may be easier for me to believe and direct Freud?s concepts of Hamlet. Male

directors have a tendency to deny and even argue that Hamlet had an Oedipus

complex. I hope that by directing this modern, Freudian Hamlet, my audiences

(especially men) will become more accepting of these concepts instead of the

repressing them.

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