While modern psychology distinguishes between psychiatric illnesses and character flaws in that the former is involuntary and the latter is relatively controllable and ameliorable, the boundary between the two is not clear-cut and is as much a subject of debate today as it was in Shakespeareâs time. Indeed, in literary and dramatic works, such as Shakespeareâs Hamlet, psychiatric illnesses and character flaws have often been presented as indistinguishable for dramatic effect, and such presentations themselves have been instructive for psychologists and psychiatrists for hundreds of years. In this connection, this essay employs Hamlet as a case study and employs Aristotelian dramatic theory to illustrate how and why the boundary between psychiatric illnesses and character flaws has sometimes been made vagueâespecially when it comes to what is known as a âfatalâ character flaw (hamartia).
Shakespeare in psychology
Shakespeare in psychology Shakespeareâs works, especially Hamlet, have been closely associated with the field of psychology since its conception. Shakespeare has been held as a âmaster of representing the human characterâ, which led early psychologists to use his works to develop and even use them in support of their theories (McKnight, 2020). Among early psychologists, Hamlet was perhaps the most popular because the protagonist exhibits symptoms of madness, the treatment for which they were especially interested in. Madness, used as an umbrella term for all mental disorders, began to be studied more closely from the late 18th century, with Hamlet being cited as a case study in insanity as early as 1778 (Bennett, 2001). Benjamin Reiss writes that at the time âno figure was cited as an authority on insanity and mental functioning more frequently than 1 William Shakespeare,â (The Madness of King Lear and Hamlet: Defining Insanity in the Courtroom, 2020). John Mason Good wrote about the condition âmelancholia attonita,â a 19th century definition similar to modern day major depressive disorders, based on Hamlet. Psychiatrists also cited Hamlet and other Shakespearean plays in court as evidence to support the diminished mental capacities of a person who had committed a crime or written a will that was being disputed.
In Act I Scene V of the play, Hamlet and two others, Marcellus and Horatio, see atop the castle wall the ghost of Hamletâs late father, who tells him that he has been murdered by his uncle Claudius. The spirit of the late king implores Hamlet to exact revenge on Claudius, who has now married Hamletâs mother and taken the throne. After his encounter with the ghost, in Act I, Scene V, Lines 171â172, Hamlet says to Marcellus and Horatio, âAs I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition onââ, which most modern scholars have taken as Hamlet deciding to fake insanity at the beginning of the play to disguise his plan to kill Claudius, only descending into true madness towards the end of the play, after he has killed multiple people in his desire to exact vengeance for his fatherâs murder McKnight (2020).
In this connection, in Act III, Scene IV of Hamlet, Hamlet sees the ghost of his father again after he kills Polonius, the father of his lover Ophelia. During the initial encounter with the ghost, in Act I Scene V, Hamlet, Marcellus, and Horatio all see the apparition. This time, however, the Queen does not see the ghost and exclaims, âAlas, heâs mad!â (Act III, Scene IV, Line 105). This prompts the audience to question whether there is indeed a ghost, ponder whether the apparition is simply a manifestation of the grief, confusion, vindictiveness that Hamlet is experiencing after his fatherâs murder and his motherâs remarriage, or, in the case of multiple characters seeing the ghost, a mass hallucination (Joseph, 1961). In any case, Hamlet begins to exhibit signs of true madness at the beginning of Act III. For Hamletâs intention was to exact revenge for his fatherâs murder by killing Claudius, but now he contemplates suicide: in the famous soliloquy, he ponders whether it is better âto be or not to beâ (Act III, Scene I, Lines 56â89).
The fatal flaw
While Act I Scene V invites doubt over whether Hamlet really sees his fatherâs ghost and sets the story of Hamletâs revenge and mental collapse in play, it also exposes Hamletâs fatal character flaw (hamartia, or áŒÎŒÎ±ÏÏία in Greek). According to Aristotle in his Poetics, hamartia is the âerror or frailtyâ that eventually leads the tragic hero to his downfall, and Hamletâs hamartia is his vengeful and Machiavellian nature. Again, it also acts as a turning point or reversal of fortune, known in Aristotelian dramatic theory as the âperipeteiaâ, setting into motion a series of events and beginning with Hamletâs conception of a plan to kill Claudius and culminating with the deaths of nearly all the characters, including Hamlet himself. While the majority of modern scholars maintain that hamartia is an error of judgment of which the hero is unaware and cannot be responsible for, an alternative interpretation asserts that hamartia derives from an inherent character flaw of the hero of which he is aware, rendering them at least in part responsible for their downfall (Vinje, 2021).
In Hamletâs case, his passion for vengeance leads him to become callous and cruel, willing to go to any means to achieve revenge. In Act III, Scene IV, Hamlet is with his mother the queen in her room when he, mistaking Polonius for Claudius, kills the former. Upon realizing that he has killed Polonius, Hamlet not only shows no remorse but insults Polonius, saying, âThou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! / I took thee for thy better. Taken thy fortune; / Thou findâst to be too busy is some danger,â (Act III, Scene IV, Lines 31â33). It is here that the effects of Hamletâs vengefulness and, more importantly, his Machiavellianismâone element of what is known in psychology as the âdark triadâ of negative personality traits, along with narcissism and psychopathy (Paulhus & Williams, 2002)âbecome apparent. However, it is unclear whether Hamletâs increasingly cruel and remorseless actions are a consequence of his 3 madness, or whether he makes himself mad by intentionally malevolent actions, knowingly worsening his inner turmoil.
Mental illnesses and personality disorders
Contemporary psychologists and psychiatrists posit a boundary between mental illness and normal behavioral deviations and reactions to irregular events, called the ânormalâdisordered boundary,â which forms the basis of diagnoses and treatments (Wakefield & First, 2013). Following the American Psychiatric Associationâs addition of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to the third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMâIII) in 1980, there has been increasing acknowledgement that sudden, radical life changes and traumatic events may lead to the blurring or breaking of the normalâdisordered boundary.
Yet normal reactions to sudden, radical changes to oneâs life and traumatic events also often overlap with symptoms of mental illnesses such as anxiety and major depressive disorders. Debates over the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMâ5) have demonstrated how it is difficult yet critical to define this boundary so that those with psychiatric illnesses can receive treatment while also not pathologizing normal behaviors and reactions. However, other than in cases of PTSD, the boundary also becomes blurred in the case of personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder. The DSMâ5 defines the essential features of a personality disorder, including âimpairments in personality functioning and the presence of pathological personality traits,â (American Psychiatric Association, 2012).
Nevertheless, personality disorders are themselves difficult to diagnose, treat, and categorize. In fact, there remains debate within the field on whether personality disorders should be classified as mental illnesses at all. One of the major characteristics of a mental illness is that its development and effects are beyond the individualâs control. But since the majority of those with a personality disorder are believed to be in control of their behavior and often appear to be deliberately manipulative, some experts are reluctant to consider personality disorders as mental illnesses (Kendell, 2002). Despite this, the majority of psychiatrists and publications do classify personality disorders as mental illnesses due to the lack of control over their own behavior.
Hamletâs case
Bringing these insights together and applying them to the case of Hamlet, it is clear that Hamlet has undergone traumatic experiences, but there is also an underlying vengefulness and Machiavellianism of which he is aware and can help to ameliorate. What allows us to make this claim is that while Hamlet has been read through an Oedipal lensâinsofar as Hamlet appears to be infuriated by his motherâs second marriage and the emergence of another, more problematic father figure with who, he has to contend withâthere is an underlying misogyny that Hamlet entertains and willingly exacerbates to extreme levels (Miyawaki, 2012).
Hamletâs resentment towards his mother for marrying Claudius expands to hatred for women as a whole. This is displayed in Hamletâs soliloquy in Act I, Scene II, Line 146, when he exclaims, âFrailty, thy name is woman!â after lamenting his motherâs marriage to his uncle. Later, he takes this unwarranted hatred for all women out on his lover Ophelia, saying: âGet thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?â (Act III, Scene I, Lines 121â122). With his motherâs marriage in mind, he continues: âGod hath given you [women] one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp, and nickname Godâs creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, Iâll no more onât; it hath made me mad.â, claiming that the deceitful nature of women has driven him mad (Act III, Scene I, Lines 143â147).
As Mullaney has pointed out, misogyny was entrenched in Elizabethan society, and there are good reasons to believe that the presentation and critique of Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, as an elderly woman remarrying, can be read as a representation of common attitudes and seething hatred towards the elderly Queen Elizabeth (Mullaney, 1994, pp. 150â151). Mullaney proposes that the widowed Gertrudeâs remarriage poses a threat to the patriarchal and monarchical system by maintaining both economic independence and her aged female sexuality, similar to Queen Elizabeth. Given the common view of Elizabeth and women in Elizabethan society, reflected in Gertrude, and the Oedipal reading of the play, Hamletâs misogyny is unsurprising.
Shakespeareâs blurring of boundaries
What is surprising, however, is the extent of Hamletâs misogynyâso extreme that it contributes to the ambiguous nature of Hamletâs sanity. In this connection, Shakespeare uses dramatic irony regarding Hamletâs madness to create tension and foreshadow the events to come. This is done through characters such as Ophelia and Hamletâs relationship to and the effect of his actions on her.
In Act II, Scene II, Polonius recounts how Ophelia rejected Hamletâs advances according to his own instructions, but laments that these rejections have caused Hamletâs apparent madness. This creates dramatic irony, since the audience knows that Hamletâs madness, feigned or otherwise, may be caused by the murder of his father and marriage of his mother (modern day PTSD or another traumaâinduced mental illness), and not unrequited love for Ophelia. Quite the opposite, in fact, for he demeans her by saying she should not have believed him when he said he loved her. This completely debases Ophelia as she, contrary to Gertrude, is the ideal of an Elizabethan woman: fragile, docile, and subject to the men in her life. This also serves to foreshadow Opheliaâs death; she falls in a river and does not make an attempt to save herself, which many have read as suicide due to Hamletâs treatment of her (Smith, 2008).
Shakespeare leaves the audience to wonder not only whether Hamlet is truly mad but also whether it is his madnessâperhaps caused by traumatic events and his hamartiaâhis extreme misogyny, or a mixture of both, that lead Ophelia to her death before Hamlet is killed in a duel to which Laertes challenged him for Ophelia and Poloniusâ deaths, destruction that he brought about.
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