Maybe Freud's onto something with Hamlet?

Freud famously derived his theory of the Oedipal complex--the idea that all men subconsciously wish to murder their fathers to marry their mothers--from two literary works: Sophocle's "Oedipus Rex" and Shakespeare's "Hamlet." The fact that King Oedipus and Prince Hamlet are both fictional characters has endlessly provoked hoots of derision from psychologists and literary critics alike.

But lately, I've started to wonder if Freud was on to something, with "Hamlet" at least--not validating the ridiculous Oedipal complex mind you; but at least understanding where Freud is coming from.

It comes down to Hamlet's peculiar form of grief, you see--he spends most the play ignoring the plot. When he should be plotting revenge on his uncle for his father's death, he is instead desiring that "O that this too too sullied flesh would melt," and contemplating suicide with "To be or not to be..." The ghost has to make an appearance in Act III just to keep the plot moving.

Any one who's grieved can understand this impulse--all our daily routines, obligations, responsibilities, the "plots" we're all likewise expected to perform, seem frivolous and trivial compared to the awful mystery of death. Hamlet's moody because his father died recently; he's grieving, he's depressed, and with all due respect, he'd prefer not to participate in your banal little revenge-tragedy at the moment.

However, Hamlet isn't just depressed, he isn't just moody--no, he's downright a prick. The hostile way he treats his girlfriend Ophelia, or his old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, rise well above mere ennui. I've known grieving people, I've grieved myself, and I can testify that though the grieving can sometimes be glib, even irreverent, they typically aren't pricks about it. In this sense, Hamlet's behavior is almost inexcusable.

But, his behavior is understandable--if you consider Hamlet as not just grieving, but heartbroken.

To explain: I once caught up with an old roommate, and asked him how a mutual friend was doing; he responded our friend had been more prickly lately, harder to live with. This surprised me, since our friend was usually very good-natured. "What do you think is the cause?" I asked him. "What do you think?" he replied facetiously, "what is the one thing that has always driven men mad?"

"A woman," I said. He nodded and smiled.

Hamlet's peculiar form of prickishness is uncharacteristic of the grieving--but it is characteristic of the heartbroken. Again, I've been around the heart-broken, and been heart-broken myself, it's an experience as universal as humanity, and I think we can all testify that the times we are hardest to live with, the times when we say and do the things we're least proud of, the times we aren't just moody but actively wish to hurt everyone around us, is when we're heart-broken.

The question then becomes: who is Hamlet heartbroken for? True, Polonius instructs Ophelia early on "to make something more scarce of your maidenly presence," to not dote so much on Hamlet. So, Ophelia is the most obvious candidate for Hamlet's heartbreak.

However, Hamlet was wishing for this "too too sullied flesh to melt" well before Polonius gives Ophelia these instructions, and when at last she appears to Hamlet with "remembrances of yours/That I have longed long to redeliver to you" and make up with him, he treats her like a distraction, an interruption. Again, this feels consistent: the heartbroken resent romantic attention from people they would otherwise be flattered by. If it was Ophelia Hamlet was heart-broken for, he would be overjoyed to have her back. But he isn't. Because she's not who he's heart-broken by. She's interrupting his heart-ache and he's angry about it.

Which leaves us Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, the only other female character in the play. And the same soliloquy where Hamlet yearns "that this too too sullied flesh would melt" (like a heart-broken emo kid), is also the same where he muses on his mother's quick re-marriage: "But two months dead--nay, not so much, not two...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...O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer--married with my uncle..." (Act I, sc. ii) (emphasis added).

"Frailty thy name is woman" is exactly the sort of misogyny that a heartbroken guy, even the best ones, finds himself exclaiming in the fury of his heartache. The message is clear; the woman Hamlet loves more than any other, even more than poor Ophelia, has remarried, quickly, without any thought for him, while he's still working through his grief. Hamlet, then, is a jilted lover. Consider, if we substitute Hamlet's father for Hamlet himself, then Hamlet's grief and prickishness at her remarriage makes perfect sense, is even understandable.

Again, I must emphasize I in no way endorse Freud's ridiculous Oedipal complex theory; all I'm saying is that it's not a stretch for Freud the psychologist, who would've known what a man driven mad with heart-ache looks like, to see in Hamlet not just a man morose with grief, but a lover enraged with heart-ache. "Hamlet" the play, then, is not just a portrait of a grief, but a profile on the heart-broken.