Hamlet-identity Crisis Essay -- essays research papers

Shakespeares hamlet is arguably one of the best plays cognise to English literature. It presents the protagonist, crossroads, and his increasingly complex path through self discovery. His voice is of an abnorm completelyy complex nature, the likes of which not often found in plays, and many different theses have been put forward about Hamlets dynamic zest. champion much(prenominal) thesis is that Hamlet is a young man with an identity operator crisis living in a world of conflicting values.An identity crisis drop be defined as a psychosocial state or condition of disorientation and role confusion occurring especially in adolescents as a dissolver of conflicting internal and international experiences, pressures, and expectations and often producing acute anxiety. (www.dictionary.com) It was apparent that Hamlet did indeed have an identity crisis beca wont of his conflicting internal and external experiences and the pressures and expectations from those in the Royal Court o f Denmark. He endures conflicting internal and external experiences such as the ghost of his father requesting him to exact revenge on Claudius and in doing so contradict all of the morals he has formed. Pressures to accept the dubitable marriage of his pay off to his uncle, pressure to accept Claudius as the new ability and expectations from the court to be emotionally strong in spite of his fathers demise and from the ghost of his father to avenge his death by killing Claudius all challenge Hamlets strength of self. His anxiety is caused as a result of these external pressures.Hamlet lives in a country of different worlds. At the time, Denmark was in a state of transition between three metaphysical worlds the idealistic world, where a mans honour was foremost, killing was not accepted but expected, ability was power, the Machiavellian world, an amoral world where politics and mind games were employed ruthlessly, the ends justified the means, and the Christian world of love a nd forgiveness. Hamlet was a Christian living in a dying Heroic world which was succumbing to the Machiavellian world. Hamlets father, King Hamlet, belonged to the epic world, and so for him revenge was of the utmost importance, shown by the fact that "but devil months" (12, 136) after his death he returned to instruct Hamlet to avenge his murder. Hamlets offense at his mothers marriage to his uncle before "the salt of most unrighteous tea... ...ing fad to sanity are reminiscent of a bi-polar disorder such as manic depression. It is possible that Hamlet put on his antic disposition to allow himself freedom from the usual constraints and etiquette of the court so that he could use different means to discover Claudius guilt without being discovered himself. Or his feigned madness may have been a reaction to the sieve of his predicament, because in doing so he frees himself from having to make decisions on courses of action and he effectively becomes a spectator in t he running of his own life. Hamlet is a man with an identity crisis because of the conflicting emotions he is feeling and expectations being thrust upon him. His eventual plunge into a state of insanity was a direct consequence of stress. The stress between worlds destroyed his moral base, the actions of his mother and his consequential treatment of Ophelia left him with no north point to follow and his constant changing of moods either caused his crisis or were as a result of losing his way. Hamlet to this sidereal day remains a complex character in the centre of maybe the finest play in the history of the English language.