Three Waves of Feminist Literary Criticism

 

The emergence of feminist literary criticism is one of the major developments in literary studies in the past forty years or so. Feminist literary criticism seeks to study and advocate the rights of women in the following ways. Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically. Patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which they are kept so. In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values. All of western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world. While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (masculine or feminine).All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality. Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not.

 

To understand the nature of feminist literary criticism and its alternative approach to literature, we must first understand its long history expanding at least 200 years back. It is Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindica-ton of the Rights of woman (1792) which marks the first modem awareness of women's struggle for equal rights, and therefore it is the first milestone for the equality of the sexes. Seventy seven years later, The Subjection of Women (1869) by John Stuart Mill marked another development in feminism. Sixty years later Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1929) developed and enhanced feminist views with a strong female sensibility and criticism. A Room of One 's Own became an important precursor of femi-nist literary criticism. Here, Virginia Woolf argues that the male domi-nated ideas of the patriarchal society prevented women from realizing their creativity and true potential. Another important name is Simone de Beauvoir whose The Second Sex(1949) has an important section on the portrayal of women in the novels of D.H.Lawrence. 

 

3 Phases of feminism 

The feminist literary criticism of today is the direct product of the ‘women’s movement’ of the 1960s.This movement was, in important ways, literary from the start, in the sense that it realized the significance of the images of women promulgated by literature, and saw it as vital to combat them and question their authority and their coherence. In this sense the women’s movement has always been crucially concerned with books and literature, so that feminist criticism should not be seen as an off-shoot or a spin-off from feminism which is remote from the ultimate aims of the movement, but as one of its most practical ways of influencing everyday conduct and attitudes.

The concern with ‘conditioning’ and ‘socialization’ underpins a crucial set of distinctions-that between the terms ‘feminist’, ‘female’, and ‘feminine’. As Toril Moi explains, the first is ‘a political position’, the second ‘a matter of biology’, and the third ‘a set of culturally defined characteristics’. Particularly in the distinction between the second and third of these lies much of the force of feminism. Other important ideas are explained in the appropriate part of the remainder of this section.

The representation of women in literature, then, was felt to be one of the most important forms of ‘socialisation’, since it provided the role models which indicated to women, and men, what constituted acceptable versions of the ‘feminine’ and legitimate feminine goals and aspirations. Feminists pointed out, for example, that in nineteenth-century fiction very few women work for a living, unless they are driven to it by dire necessity. Instead, the focus of interest is on the heroine’s choice of marriage partner, which will decide her ultimate social position and exclusively determine her happiness and fulfillment in life, or her lack of these.

Thus, in feminist criticism in the 1970s the major effort went into exposing what might be  called the mechanisms of patriarchy, that is, the cultural ‘mind-set’ in men and women which perpetuated sexual inequality. Critical attention was given to books by male writers in which influential or typical images of women were constructed. Necessarily, the criticism which undertook this work was combative and polemical.

In the 1980s, in feminism as in other critical approaches, the mood changed. Firstly, feminist criticism became much more eclectic, meaning that it began to draw upon the findings and approaches of other kinds of criticism-Marxism,structuralism,linguistics, and so on. Secondly, it switched its focus from attacking male versions of the world to exploring the nature of the female world and outlook, and reconstructing the lost or suppressed records of female experience. Thirdly, attention was switched to the need to construct a new canon of women’s writing by rewriting the history of the novel and of poetry in such a way that neglected women writers were given new prominence.

Such distinct phases of interest and activity seem characteristic of feminist criticism. Elaine Showalter, for instance, described the change in the late 1970s as a shift of attention from ‘androtexts’ (books by men) to ‘gynotexts’(books by women).She coined the term ‘gynocritics’, meaning the study of gynotexts, but gynocriticism is a broad and varied field, and any generalizations about it should be treated with caution. The subjects of gynocriticism are, she says, ‘the history, styles, themes, genres, and structures of writing by women; the psychodynamics of female creativity; the trajectory of the individual or collective female career; and the evolution or laws of a female literary tradition’.

Showalter also detects in the history of women’s writing a feminine phase(1840-80),in which women writers imitated dominant male artistic norms and aesthetic standards; then a feminist phase(1880-1920),in which radical and often separatist positions are maintained; and finally a female phase(1920 onwards)which looked particularly at female writing and female experience. The reasons for this liking for ‘phasing’ are complex: partly, it is the  result of the view that feminist criticism required a terminology if it was to attain theoretical respectability. More importantly, there is a great need, in all intellectual disciplines, to establish a sense of progress, enabling early and cruder examples of (in this case) feminist criticism to be given their rightful credit and acknowledgement while at the same time making it clear that the approach they represent is no longer generally regarded as a model for practice.

But feminist criticism since the 1970s has been remarkable for the wide range of positions that exist within it. Feminist criticism also began to take its methodological inspiration from theories as varied as Marxism, structuralism, psychoanalysis, or deconstruction. However, the main debates and disagreements in feminist criticism have centered on three particular areas, these being: 1.the role of theory;2.the nature of language, and 3.the value or otherwise of psychoanalysis.

Contrast or Differences between Structuralism and Post-structuralism

Post-Structuralism which is often used synonymously with Deconstruction is a reaction to structuralism and works against seeing language as a stable, closed system. It is a shift from seeing the poem or novel as a closed entity, equipped with definite meanings which it is the critic's task to decipher, to seeing literature as irreducibly plural, an endless play of signifiers which can never be finally nailed down to a single center, essence, or meaning.

Post-structuralism is a shift of emphasis from centered to decentered structures or from the centres to the margins. The shift from structuralism to post-structuralism began in the late 1960s, and can be detected in the writings of Barthes, who eventually questioned his own search for the structures underlying literature; Jacques Derrida, who `undid' structuralist texts by applying a kind of metacriticism, claiming to show that there were no governing structures; Jacques Lacan `with his systematic assault on the idea of a centred and unified self ; and Michel Foucault `with his abandonment of the idea of a single and continuous history of mankind. All share a suspicion of `centred' thought.

Post-structuralist approaches attempt to show that even so-called basic structures can be broken down into further underlying structures, and that the unifying centres themselves can be broken down. All that remains is a free play of relationships between signs.

Peter Barry points out the following are some of the differences and distinctions between structuralism and post-structuralism in his Beginning Theory.

1.Origins    Structuralism derives ultimately from linguistics. Linguistics is a discipline which has always been inherently confident  about the possibility of establishing objective knowledge. It believes that if we observe accurately, collect data systematically, and make logical deductions then we can reach reliable conclusions about language and the world. Structuralism inherits this confidently scientific outlook:it too believes in method, system,and reason as being able to establish reliable truths.

By contrast, post-structuralism derives ultimately from philosophy.Philosophy is a discipline which has always tended to emphasise the difficulty of achieving secure knowledge about things.This point of view is encapsulated in Nietzsche’s famous remark ‘there are no facts,only interpretations’.Philosophy is,so to speak,skeptical by nature and usually undercuts and questions commonsensical notions and assumptions.Its procedures often begin by calling into question what is usually taken for granted as simply the way things are. Post-structuralism inherits this habit of skepticism,and intensifies it.It regards any confidence in the scientific method as naive, and even derives a certain masochistic intellectual pleasure from knowing for certain that we can’t know anything for certain, fully conscious of the irony and paradox which doing this entails.

2.Tone and style    Structuralist writing tends towards abstraction and  generalization: it aims for a detached, ‘scientific coolness’ of tone. Given its derivation from linguistic science,this is what we would expect. And essay like Roland Barthes’s1966 piece ‘Introduction to the structural analysis of narrative’(reprinted in Image,Music,Text,ed.Stephen Heath,1977)is typical  of this tone and treatment,with its discrete steps in an orderly exposition, complete with diagrams. The style is neutral and anonymous, as is typical of scientific writing.

Post-structuralist writing, by contrast, tends to be much more emotive.Often the tone is urgent and euphoric,and the style flamboyant and self-consciously showy.Titles may well contain puns and allusions,and often the central line of the argument is based on a pun or a word-play of some kind.

Often deconstructive writing fixes on some ‘material’ aspect of language,such as a metaphor used by a writer or the etymology of a word.Overall it seems to aim for an engaged warmth rather than detached coolness.

3.Attitude to language    Structuralists accept that the world is constructed through language,in the sense that we do not have access to reality other than through the linguistic medium.All the same,it decides to live with that fact and continue to use language to think and perceive with.After all,language is an orderly system,not a chaotic one ,so realizing our dependence upon it need not  induce intellectual despair.

By contrast,post-structuralism is much more fundamentalist in insisting upon the consequences of the view that,in effect,reality itself is textual.Post-structurslism develops what threaten to become terminal anxieties about the possibility of achieving any knowledge through language.The verbal sign,in its view,is constantly floating free of the concept it is supposed to designate.Thus,the post-structuralist’s way of  speaking about language involves a rather obsessive imagery based on liquids-signs float free of what they designate,meanings are fluid, and subject to constant ‘slippage’ or ‘spillage’.This linguistic liquid,sloppling about and swilling over unpredictably,defies our attempts to carry signification carefully from ‘giver’ to  ‘receiver’ in the containers we call words.We are not fully in control of the medium of language,so meanings can not be planted in set places,like somebody planting a row of potato seeds;they can only be randomly scattered or ‘disseminated’,like the planter walking along and scattering seed with broad sweeps of the arm,so that much of it lands unpredictably or drifts in the wind.

4.Project    By ‘project’ here  I mean the fundamental aims of each movement,what it is they want to persuade us of.Structuralism,firstly,questions our way of structuring and categorising  reality,and prompts us to break free of habitual modes of perception or categorization,but it believes that we can thereby attain a more reliable view of things.

Post-structuralism is much more fundamental: it distrusts the very notion of reason,and the idea of the human being as an independent entity, preferring the notion of the ‘dissolved’ or ‘constructed’ subject, whereby what we may think of as the individual is really a product of social and linguistic forces that is,not an essence at all,merely a ‘tissue of textualities’. Thus, its torch of skepticism burns away the intellectual ground on which the Western civilization is built.

Modernism in English Literature: Rise,Development and the Main Features of Literary Modernism in English Literature

Modernity is a period in human history, roughly from the enlightenment (late 18th century and early 19th century) marked by the division of the religious and the secular, the increasing mechanization of the world, the rise of industrial capitalism, the increased role of the state, the increased regulation of time and space, and the discourses of emancipation of women, working classes etc. 

It may be taken to refer to a Euro- American trend in literature of 1920‘s with the works of James Joyce, T.S.Eliot, Hilda Doolittle, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett and Ezra Pound. The literature of the time was influenced by a number of movements and theories such as: Expressionism, Impressionism, Imagism, Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism or Vorticism. Expressionism first came into prominence around German artists under the influence of Vincent Van Gogh and Edward Munch. It believes in using violent colours and dynamic movements to capture moods. Modern dramatist Bertolt Brecht was influenced by expressionism.

Wyndham Lewis adapted its methods in Britain and created a new movement called Vorticism or Futurism which emphasized on ―vibrant energy. It exults aggressive action, a feverish insomnia the racer‟s stride, the mortal leap, the punch and the slap….. the beauty of speed.” Ezra Pound wrote: “the image is a vortex through which ideas rush through.” The movement used modernism‘s fascination with technology and energy. The term Impressionism might have been derived from Claude Monet‘s painting Impression. The emphasis of this movement was on the impression of the object rather the object itself. For this purpose, the artists used light very effectively. 

Imagism emphasized that the poet remove himself and herself from the object and to deliver it  as objectively as possible. The images should capture emotions and events in “an instant of time”. Ezra Pound, T.E. Hume, E.A. Robinson, Ford, Amy Lowell, Hilda Doolittle and F.S. Flint were the poets who formulated this aesthetic. Surrealism was popularized by Salvador Dali which attempted to capture the mind‘s deepest and most unconscious aspect in painting. In literature, automatic writing and stream of
consciousness came closest to being influenced by this kind of approach. The surrealists saw the unconscious as source of creative energy. Dylan Thomas, James Joyce, David Gascoyne, George Barker, William Borough and Martin Amis were influenced by Surrealism. The interplay of theories and movements has brought in complexities into modern literature.

The Modern age in literature is grounded in achievement, amazing in their potential both for emancipation and destruction: atomic energy, space exploration, genetic and biomedical engineering and telecommunications. Technological advances in these areas can either save mankind and the universe or destroy it. The rapid urbanization has created the environmental problems. The race to colonize space, the discovery of DNA standing at par with the discovery of the radio waves, the theory of relativity have shattered the old certainties and have posed threats to the new ideas. The economic depression of 1930s proved to be a huge blow to the already suffering poor. The lack of job and the devaluation of money made life exceptionally tough. Many large business houses went bankrupt with the stock exchange crashes.

Wars significantly altered political and social relations. They brought out the truth that man is perfectly capable of destroying what he has built, that cruelty is an integral feature of human psychology, that war brings in suffering whatever the reason might be, and that war may be about heroism as has been shown by W. B. Yeats in his An Irish Airman Foresees His Death. The literature of the two World-Wars was an attempt to negotiate the trauma of such extensive suffering and the theme of power and cruelty. The Wars also revealed the fragile nature of human existence. T. S. Eliot refers to the very limited knowledge of human beings and the fragmented nature of human memory, identity, desire and existence itself in his The Wasteland: “these fragments I have shored against my ruins.

Twentieth century literature is the literature of hopelessness, and the fallibility of mankind in the face of war. Poets and artists sought to escape the harsh realities of suffering, destruction and cruelty by retreating into the self which is evident in the stream of consciousness technique of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. George Orwell‘s socialist sympathies made him deeply suspicious of capitalist modernity which he showcased by his non fictional works. His Animal Firm is an allegory on socialism. His 1984 is a bleaker picture of society in which the popular slogans of the political part are: ―War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength”. 

James Joyce‘s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a kind of epiphany (revelation) of the consciousness. His Ulysses is a tale about identity, aesthetics and faith. The Campus Novels of Kingsley Amis, Tom Sharpe and David Lodge deal with university life; it‘s the question of research, funding, politics of contemporary literary theory and feminism. The Popular Novels of the twentieth century are thrillers, airport or train readings and plain entertainment that generated profits, celebrities and social criticism. Fashion, shopping and consumerism, tourism and travel, partying and socializing, crime and horror are the commonest themes of these novels.

The devastating consequences of the World-Wars carried in the themes like trenches, wounds and death. The volume of modern poetry is: What a Lovely War! British Soldier‟s Songs (1990). Sassoon Satirizes hypocrisy of the authority:

―The Bishop tells us: When the boys come back
They will not be the same; for they‘ll have fought
‗In a just cause; they led the last attack
‗On anti-Christ; their comrades‘ blood has bought
‗New right to breed an honourable race,
They have challenged death and dared him face to face;
‗We‘re none of us the same‘ the boys reply.
For George lost both his legs; and Bill‘s stone blind;
‗Poor Jim‘s shot through the lungs and like to die;
‗And Bert‘s gone syphilitic: you‘ll not find;

‗A chap who‘s served that hasn‘t found some change.
‗And the Bishop said: ―The ways of God are strange!‖
(Siegfried Sassoon)

Ezra Pound nurtured several poets- one of them is T.S. Eliot. Pound edited Eliot‘s The Wasteland and was at the fore front of major literary movements and development like Vorticism and Imagism. He was also associated with Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway and Hilda Doolittle first in London and then in Paris. He has an obsession with accurate language, minimalism and sharp imagery:

―See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!‖
(Personae, 1909)

He assimilated the ancients and the non-European cultures in English poetry, Eliot recognized this and described him as being both “objectionably modern” and “objectionably antiquarian”. He was an advocate of spare imagery and free verse:

―The apparitions of these faces in the crowd;
    Petals on a wet, black bough.
                                          (In a Station of the Metro)

W.B.Yeats is surely Ireland‘s great poet who was influenced by the French symbolists and adapted from Celtic mythology and various mystic traditions. He was a deeply political poet and was engaged with Ireland‘s struggle with England. His love poetry has been far more popular. The mystic vision fuses present and past and suggests a harmony and unity that is truly organic:

―O chestnut trees! Great-rooted blossomer
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance
How can we know the dancer from the dance?‖
(Among School Children)

T.S.Eliot, the most complex poet of the twentieth century selected the city as the 'topos‘ or the setting of his The Love song Alfred Prufrock” where there is the sense of ennui as the city, its people and the very character seem to be in coma. There is a breakdown of communication between people. Meanings of words and language are being constantly questioned. The characters of the poem are together and yet they are separate which conveys the modernist theme of urban alienation. The man in the poem wants to convey something to the woman in the poem but she does not seem to understand. Time is non-linear and space is surreal in the poem. Characters like Prufrock are many in Eliot poems such as Gerontion, Hollow Men and Ash Wednesday. The characters are portraits of failure. The Wasteland is an unparalleled work in modern poetry in the form of fragments, and is meant to indicate how human knowledge is limited and incomplete:

―Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images,

The poem explores the collapse of contemporary civilizations. Sexuality is meaningless, religion has failed, technology and science are used in wars to kill people. In a sense the poem is an apocalypse- as civilization fall, cities corrupt and ghost wail. There is, however, a hope for the future, symbolized in the prophecy of rain in the poem.

George Barnard Shaw, the first major playwright of the modern period published his Quintessence of Ibsenism in 1891and popularized Ibsen in England. His Arms and the Man (1894) focused on war as a theme, Candida looked at marriage and love, Major Barbara (1905) is an exploration of ethics in Christianity, Pygmalion (1914) is a story of the English language and The Apple Cart (1929) is a play that surveys the multiple political philosophies of the time.

T.S. Eliot‘s verse play Murder in the Cathedral (1935) invokes the past to comment on the present, a play about the slow erosion of Christian ideas and ideals by fascism and Nazism. Christopher Fry‘s period piece The Lady‟s Not For goers with its very contemporary characters including a war-weary soldier, Thomas Mendip who is tired of life and situation. J.M. Synge‘s Playboy of the Western World created a riot on its opening night in Dublin in 1907. Sean O‘Casey showcases the Unionism and nationalism that was his enduring theme in The Shadow of a Gunman (1923). He also writes a play glorifying socialism, The Star Turns Red (1940). 

The Angry Young Men were the writers from the working class who were unhappy at the cultural and class-bound elitism of England, the social inequalities and what they perceived as the injustice of the state. The group includes dramatists like John Osborne and Harold Pinter, poets like Philip Larkin and John Wain, and novelists like Kingsley Amis, John Wain, John Braine and Allan Sillitoe. As a consequence of all these factors, literature in modern times has become a complex world filled with tension, anxiety and doubt. Doubt, Question, and Protest, have become the watch-words of the modern period.

A Psychoanalytic Reading of Hamlet

William Shakespeare's Hamlet is different from other Elizabethan revenge plays in the sense that the playwright did put much effort in depicting the psychological make-up of his hero Hamlet. The way Shakespeare portrays the psychological complexities of Hamlet, the play has become a lucrative text to the critics to see through the psychoanalytic lens. Analysis of Hamlet using psychoanalytic criticism reveals the inward states of Hamlet’s mind. Among the various aspects of Hamlet’s character, the thing that instantly draws our attention is his relation with his mother Getrude. It is here the psychoanalytic ckritics opine that Hamlet has an Oedipus Complex to his mother. Freud developed the theory of Oedipus complex, whereby, says Freud, the male infant conceives the desire of eliminate the father and become the sexual partner of the mother. Hamlet, too, has several symptoms to suffer from Oedipus Complex.

Hamlet’s Oedipus Complex:

A fundamental basis for all of Freudian psychology resides in the Oedipal feelings which Freud believed are common to all male children. The major psychological distinction between one person and another was said to come from the way the person handled those feelings and the way that handling was represented in everyday life( how the hell do you write such nonsense sentences?). Freud is categorical about the existence of the Oedipal impulse

“It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that that is so. King Oedipus, who slew his father Laïus and married his mother Jocasta, merely shows us the fulfillment of our own childhood wishes... Here is one in whom these primeval wishes of our childhood have been fulfilled. While the poet, as he unravels the past, brings to light the guilt of Oedipus, he is at the same time compelling us to recognize our own inner minds, in which those same impulses, though suppressed, are still to be found”.  - Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, tr. James Strachey, Avon, N.Y. 1965. p.296.

Freud also explains the difference between what he takes to be an innate universal psychological mechanism and the accepted range of expression of civilization with the notion of repression. For example, Hamlet has fundamental urges which are not visible in the course of the play is a tribute to the energy he has invested in repressing them. Freud allies advances in civilization itself with the increase of repression.

Hamlet and Oedipus from Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, have striking similarities which augment Hamlet’s Oedipus complex. ‘The Oedipus complex’ is a psychoanalytic theory which encompasses the idea of unconsciously desiring the parent of the opposite sex, while desiring to eliminate the parent of the same sex. Hamlet does hold these feeling for his mother, Gertrude, but Hamlet’s situation contrasts greatly to that of Oedipus; Hamlet never fulfills his oedipal desires. Despite this fact, Hamlet is said to have one of the greatest Oedipus complexes.

Now, in analyzing Hamlet, ‘the Oedipus Complex’ is clearly apparent to the reader. As a child, Hamlet always expressed the warmest fondness and affection for his mother. This adoration contained elements of disguised erotic quality, especially seen in the bed chamber scene with his mother. The Queen's sensual nature and her passionate fondness of her son are two traits that show her relationship with Hamlet goes beyond the normal mother-son relationship. Nonetheless though, Hamlet finds a love interest in Ophelia. His feelings for Ophelia are never discussed fully in the play, but it is evident to the reader that at one time he loved her because of the hurt he feels when she lies to him. At this part in the play, Hamlet insults Ophelia by telling her, "Or if/ thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know/ well enough what monsters you make of them. To a /nunn'ry, go, and quickly too" (3.1.136-139). At this part in the play, it is extremely difficult for Hamlet to differentiate between his mother and Ophelia. Therefore, making his true feelings for his mother become more obscure. Another thing is that, when Hamlet's father dies and his mother re-marries, the independency of the idea of sexuality with his mother, concealed since infancy, can no longer be hid from his consciousness. Emotions which were favorable and pleasing at infancy are now emotions of abhorrence and disgust because of his repressions. In the beginning of the play he becomes extremely derisive and contemptuous to his mother. "Seems, madam? Nay, it is, I know not "seems." (1.2.76). When Hamlet says this, he is mocking his mother's question about why he is still mourning his father's death. Ironically, out of the love he still has for his mother, he yields her request to remain at the court. The long "repressed" need to take his father's place, by gaining his mother's devotion is first stimulated to unconscious activity by the marriage of his mother to Claudius. Claudius has usurped the position of husband to Gertrude, a position that Hamlet had once longed for. Their incestuous marriage thus resembles Hamlet's imaginary idea of having a sexual relationship with his mother. These unconscious desires are struggling to find conscious expression, without Hamlet being the least aware of them.

As the play goes on, Hamlet comes to know that Claudius is the murderer of his father. Knowing the truth makes Hamlet's subconscious realize that killing Claudius would be similar to killing himself. This is so because Hamlet recognizes that Claudius' actions of murdering his brother and marrying Hamlet's mother, mimicked Hamlet's inner unconscious desires. Hamlet's unconscious fantasies have always been closely related to Claudius' conduct. All of Hamlet's once hidden feelings seem to surface in spite of all of the "repressing forces," when he cries out, "Oh my prophetic soul!/ My uncle!" (1.5.40-41). From here, Hamlet's consciousness must deal with the frightful truth. Therefore, when dealing with Claudius, Hamlet's attitude is extremely complex and intricate. The concepts of death and sexuality are interchangeable in this play. To the reader, it is evident that Hamlet hates his uncle, but his despise of Claudius comes more from his jealousy than from anything else. The more Hamlet criticizes Claudius, the more his unconscious feelings start to unravel. Hence, Hamlet is faced with a dilemma by acknowledging the same feelings his uncle has towards his mother, even though he detests Claudius, and yet on the other hand, he feels the need to avenge his father's death. It takes Hamlet a month to decide to finally take action against Claudius. Hamlet is convinced of Claudius' guilt, but his own guilt prevents him from completely eliminating his uncle. Hamlet is still trying to "repress" his own sexual desires. It could be construed that Claudius manifests all of Hamlet's passions and emotions. If Claudius is killed, then Hamlet must also be killed. The course of action that Hamlet pursues can only lead to his ruin. In the end of the play, Hamlet is finally willing to make the ultimate sacrifice: to avenge his father's death and to kill his uncle, as well as part of himself.

The Soul of Nero:

Some critics say that Hamlet might intend to murder his mother Gertrude herself. The ghost of Hamlet's father has also expressed concern for Gertrude's safety with Hamlet, and to add to the list, Hamlet, himself seems to need some assurance on the matter.

“Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business at the day Would quake to look on: soft, now to my mother - O heart, lose not thy nature, let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom, Let me be cruel not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her, but use none.”                                                        [Act III, Scene II]

Freud's assumption is that the presence of Gertrude evokes a sense of guilt and discomfort (as a result of his Oedipal yearnings) which Hamlet is unable to tolerate. Hamlet's own allusion to Nero is based on a similar situation - although derived from quite different events. Nero was reputed to have slept with his mother, Agrippina, and then to have murdered her out of a sense of guilt. Oedipus or Orestes? In both cases, there is an argument to be made that the target of Hamlet's aggression would more appropriately have been his mother, rather than his father.

Psychoanalytic criticism at Hamlet's actions:.

If we want to understand the psychological implications of Hamlet, the primary focus should be on the character Hamlet and how he develops and modifies throughout the play. In order to gain a true understanding of most of the detail that is implied through Hamlet’s way of portraying himself to others, it is vital to look deep into the actions that are carried out, and analyze them psychoanalytically.

Hamlet’s hesitation to kill the King :

The play is built up on Hamlet's hesitations over fulfilling the task of revenge that is assigned to him. The central mystery in it -- namely the meaning of Hamlet's hesitancy in seeking to obtain revenge for his father's murder -- has been called “the Sphinx of modern literature”.  Freudian critics then go on to address what they consider the heart of the matter in Hamlet; the reasons for Hamlet's seeming delay in killing Claudius. For them, Claudius represents, in flesh and blood, the embodiment of Hamlet's Oedipal urges. He has actually killed Hamlet's father and is sleeping with his mother. Hamlet's hesitation in killing Claudius, according to Freud, has to do with his deeper association with him. Claudius serves as a flesh and blood expression of his own repressed childhood fantasies, and to kill him would be to murder a part of his own inner self already associated with self-loathing. The "clincher" on Freud's solution to what he called "The Problem" has to do with not only Hamlet's delay in killing the king, but also with the actual murder of Claudius. The long-awaited event can only take place when Gertrude has died. Hamlet is then free to act because the cause of his repressed guilt has been eliminated, and he kills Claudius immediately.

Hamlet’s Madness:

In the actual play, one of the principle arguments is whether Hamlet is truly mad or not. To analyze this for validity, we would have to look at the linguistics of the play and the situations that play out within it. There is concrete evidence, as well as implied detail, which leads one to believe that Hamlet is only acting as if he were mad in or not. Throughout the play, we come across Hamlet’s often strange and erratic behaviours such as—his fondness for ridiculing, his cruelty toward Ophelia, his broken sleeps and bad dreams, his melancholy, his desire for secrecy, in the scene of Ophelia’s funeral. Hamlet’s these attitudes are mainly outcome of his frustration and mental disturbance.

In Act-I Scene-V of the play, when the ghost unearths the conspiracy of his murder allegedly involving Gertrude, Hamlet pours out his frustration about both his mother and Claudius in such a manner,

“O most pernicious woman!

Oh villain, villain, smiling damned villain!

That one may smile, and smile and be a villain;”

Such psychological disorders result from Hamlet’s mental disturbance. Compulsive obsessive disorder is an abnormal state of mind in which the subject is unconsciously forced to involve in an activity repeatedly. This, usually, is an outcome of some emotional turbulence and needs a clinical treatment.

Soliloquies:

Soliloquies in Shakespearean tragedies display the innermost layers of human psyche. Like a tip of the iceberg, outward behavior demonstrates only tenth part of what a person is. Hamlet’s following soliloquy, shows that human mind is highly erratic and volatile.

“What piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, … and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

However, the most soul-searching soliloquy appears in Act-III Scene 1 which shows the conflict of human mind that tortures almost all the human beings at one or the other stage of life, and that is,

“To be, or not to be, that is the question;

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them; To die – to  sleep,

…

To sleep, perchance to dream – ay , there’s the rub: …”

Soliloquies are the most authentic means to analyze the inner psyche of any character. His or her inner struggle is revealed in such a situation. In Shakespearean tragedy, there is always an element of psychomachia or the struggle within the soul; which may be externalized in many ways.

In a nutshell, we can say that Shakespeare’s Hamlet has surpassed the confines of the Psychologists’ capabilities and it has been a usual practice of the psychologists to treat Hamlet as a psychological patient rather than as a character.