Hamlet provides a perfect opportunity to apply archetypal analysis. In particular, the archetypal trope of the “sacrificial hero” fits in quite well with the themes and plot of the play. Critical literary approaches to Hamlet typically focus on the Oedipus complex.
It has been argued that Hamlet’s jealousy of his uncle Claudius being able to kill his father and marry his mother drove his confusion, frustration, and hesitancy throughout the play. According to this psychoanalytical approach, Hamlet secretly wanted to kill his father and marry his mother. But his uncle beat him to it!
The Oedipus complex has been challenged both in the fields of psychology and literature. In fact, the archetypal approach was partially a reaction against the psychoanalytical theory of Freud. It was developed by his student Jung, who vigorously disagreed with his teacher on certain aggressive sexual interpretations.
In this article, I discuss the archetypal approach to analyzing Hamlet and compare it briefly to the more common psychoanalytical perspective.
Hamlet: Plot summary & analysis
Let’s begin with an analysis of the plot of the play itself. Hamlet (1603) written by William Shakespeare centers on Prince Hamlet of Denmark. The ghost of King Hamlet reveals to his son that he was murdered by Claudius, his own brother, and the current king of Denmark.
Act 1, Scene 5:
I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.
’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgèd process of my death
Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.
Hamlet fails to act immediately after this revelation. He comes up with a convoluted plot to gather more evidence and play mad. Things escalate when he puts on a play that closely mimics the manner of his father’s death as told by the ghost — that is, being poisoned through the ear.
This provokes suspicions from Claudius who arranges for Hamlet to be sent away. There are several casualties from his shenanigans. For example, after abusing his fiancee — Ophelia —- with misogynistic insults, she descends into grief and depression and drowns herself. Polonius is also killed by Hamlet after Hamlet mistakes him for Claudius.
Hamlet is sent away but returns. By then, the King and Laertes, the son of Polinus, are determined to kill Hamlet by poisoning him. However, the plan goes awry. Gertrude is poisoned, as are both Laertes and Hamlet. However, Hamlet kills Claudius before he dies. The Danish throne is then passed to Fortinbras of Norway.
Archetypal Analysis: The Fisher King as a model
In an archetypal analysis, Hamlet can be seen as fulfilling the role of the sacrificial hero. What is the sacrificial hero? The sacrificial hero is the figure who has to be sacrificed for the greater good of the community.
In stories and myths that feature the sacrificial hero, the hero character is portrayed as symbolizing the land or the body politic. If the king becomes sick, the land is sick. The land can only healed by either one of two means. Either the king has to die or be sacrificed or the king has to be healed.
One of the most famous examples of the king being linked to the physical and political health of the land is the story of the Fisher King. The legend of the Fisher King is closely related to Arthurian legend and tells the story of a king who is the guardian of the Holy Grail, the cup that holds the precious blood of Jesus.
The king is wounded in the thigh. This has symbolic significance. The thigh may be a euphemism for the king’s reproductive organs, as some versions of the story mention the wound as occurring in the groin. This is crucial as the king’s unhealed injury renders the land an unproductive wasteland, where nothing grows. The king’s wound represents a kind of spiritual death or rot that infects the whole land. In short, the king has been poisoned along with the land or body politic.
The Fisher King's ailment is typically described as a moral or spiritual failing of some sort. Some versions of the tale claim that he lusted after a married woman and thus paid the price of impotence (wound in the groin) for it.
One of the more interesting and modern interpretations of the tale is from a movie of the same name The Fisher King (1991) directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Robin Williams. The Fisher King, as narrated by the character of Robin Williams, is portrayed as being morally corrupted by ambitions of power when offered the chance to possess the Holy Grail:
T.S. Eliot found the tale so apt that the Fisher King makes a few appearances in his famous poem — The Wasteland (1922, Lines 423-425):
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
The king is called a Fisher King because his wound makes him unfit for statecraft or politics besides fishing in a small pond near his castle. He cannot go to battle or lead his armies in war.
He is left hoping and waiting for someone to come along and heal his wound. This is done when Percival — one of the knights of Arthur — arrives in his court and heals him. With the king healed, the land blossoms and is no longer barren.
You may be asking: What on earth does any of this have to do with Hamlet? In Hamlet, poison is a major motif. With the regicide committed by Claudius, there is a rot in Denmark. When Claudius poisoned the king through his ear, he tainted the entire family's birthright to the Danish throne. Hamlet is responsible for getting rid of the rot to heal the land.
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Something rotten in Denmark: The poison motif
In Act 1, Scene 5, one of the characters in the play upon witnessing the ghost of Hamlet’s father remarks “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
This rot is closely associated with poison, a powerful motif in Hamlet. In fact, it’s more than just a motif. It is an agent used to achieve the major events in the play. The Ghost of Hamlet’s father explains how he was poisoned by his own brother Claudius who plotted with his wife:
Act 1, Scene 5:
’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgèd process of my death
Rankly abused.
Notice how the king compares being poisoned in the ear with “the whole ear of Demark” being poisoned. This means that the wrong done against the king affects the entire body politic.
Such sickness is manifested by the fact that the throne of Denmark is now being threatened by the Norwegian king, Frotinbras.
Claudius has committed fratricide and regicide, and in the process, he has unknowingly denounced the right to the throne. Hamlet also thinks of his mother as morally corrupt for likely participating in this evil plot. Here is the famous quote where he expresses disappointment in his mother's betrayal to the point of contemplating suicide.
He finds it hard to understand why his mother would get remarried less than two full months after his father's death.
Act 1, Scene 2:
Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
. . .
But two months dead – nay, not so much, not two –
So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on. And yet within a month –
let me not think on't; frailty, thy name is woman! –
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body
Like Niobe, all tears, why she, even she –
Oh, God! a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer – married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes,
She married. Oh, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
So in addition to regicide and fratricide, we can add the crime of incest committed by Hamlet’s family. By sleeping with his brother’s wife after killing him, Claudius engages in incest — a crime against the Christian virtues that Denmark and its kingship are built upon.
Hamlet’s attitude toward his mother is often the main argument used to support a Freudian or Oedipal interpretation of the play. However, the subconscious probably does not have to be invoked to explain Hamlet’s disappointment and anxiety regarding his mother.
Perhaps, we should take it at face value. We would expect a son under any circumstances to be confused and in inner turmoil at the idea of his mother plotting to kill his father and marry the man who committed the vile act.
Maybe Freud was right when he said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” And has no sexual connotation. The fact that the king died by being poisoned in the ear also has symbolic significance.
The ghost informing Hamlet of how his father died and the necessity of taking vengeance on his behalf can also be seen as Hamlet being poisoned through the ear. The rot begins to set in when Hamlet gains this knowledge. It leads to confusion, emotional turmoil, self-hate bordering on suicidal ideation, and madness.
In short, Hamlet has been chosen for the task of healing the rot in the state of Denmark. And this task includes the self-destruction of both him and his morally corrupt royal household. This manifests itself first in how people around Hamlet suffer as a consequence of his state of mental instability — including Ophelia and Polonius. The last scene of the play is a literal manifestation of this rot and poison.
Everyone dies from Claudius’ failed plot to poison Hamlet like he did the king: Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother; Hamlet himself; and Claudius, who is killed by a dying Hamlet. The Fisher King has a happy ending or resolution. He is healed and the land is restored.
In the case of Hamlet, the rot in the royal family is too deep and advanced. This means that the entire family has to be amputated from the body politic for the kingdom to heal, and Hamlet is the tragic vehicle through which that occurs.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2025, January 11). An Analysis of Hamlet | An Archetypal Approach. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/an-analysis-of-hamlet-an-archetypal-approach |
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