If you were asked to consider the story of Hamlet and articulate it in a single phrase, what would probably come to mind is 'extremely dysfunctional'. If you're one of those elitist, intellectual types and you prefer to describe Hamlet as a study of the Oedipal themes or some other rot, let me break it down as I got it and then you tell me if the story is not about sheer dysfunction.
Let's recap. Hamlet's uncle poisons his daddy, the king, and kills him. Uncle Psycho marries lonely Queen Gertie, Ham's mama, before daddy's body even hits the ground. Hamlet, despondent and grieving, chats with poor poppa's ghost and learns the truth. Hamlet takes up dear old dad's command to "remember me" (in English, "get payback boy! Only, leave your dear ol' ma out of this") and feigns schizo to trap King Uncle/Daddy. In the process, Hamlet can't help but harbor twisted psycho-sexual aggression and anger against Queen Mama for bed hoppin'. Hamlet produces a play to rub King Uncle/Daddy the wrong way (and does), accidentally kills busy-body Polonius, and screws over (possibly literally) Ophelia, his girlfriend, because she's female and thus weak like Queen Mum. She goes nuts (for real) because she got the shaft (then again, maybe she didn't and that made her mad) and possibly because her daddy got whacked. So far, sounds pretty dysfunctional to me. But we're not done yet.
King Uncle/Daddy sends Hamlet and a secret letter to England hoping he's killed while there, but schizo boy finds it, forges another letter, and has his buddies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern knocked off instead. Ham returns home just in time for the funeral of his one-time girl Ophelia (who drowned herself) and clashes with her extremely pissed off big brother, Laertes. Laertes is so hot about his dead sister and pop that he plots with Ol' King Killer to "accidentally" kill Ham with poison. King Killer has to make it look like an accident so that he doesn't lose favor with Queen Mama Gertie. So, King Uncle/Daddy/Killer sets up a sword contest between Hammy and Laertes, who poisons the tip of his sword, and poisons the wine, which Ham's mama accidentally drinks. In the end, flights of angels send Hamlet, his mama, the Killer King, and Laertes to their rest via poison and deception. Sounds pretty twisted to me.
But the most disturbing aspect of the entire tale is how our pal Willy S. had utilizes sex as the underlying driving force behind most of the action of the tale. The uncle kills his brother, not so much for the thrill of ruling, but because of how bad he coveted his brother's wife (a big Biblical no-no!). Hamlet despised his mother and Ophelia because he connected women with a weakness for sexual gratification. Mother jumped in the sack all too quickly with the uncle so therefore, as the prime woman in his life, women, in general, are thus represented by her model. Ophelia lost her mind because she wasn't getting any from Hamlet. Then again, others may contest that theory and argue that he and Ophelia had been intimate. His sudden and unexpected turn toward lunacy, and away from her, was the actual catalyst that sent her mind into a tailspin. In either regard, sex was the overall reason Ophelia lost it.
In this context, Shakespeare sounds very Freudian - everyone is sex-crazed and thus driven to desperate acts of violence and illogical behavior. So, rather than a stuffy and pretentious assessment of the thematic meaning behind the Oedipal relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet, or some other antiquated high school English subject, how about we look at what old Willy S. was really saying in Hamlet; too much or too little sex can drive you mad!
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