Something Rotten in Denmark: Hamlet’s DepressinSomething Rotten in Denmark: Hamlet’s DepressinMany psychiatrists have come to the conclusion that had Shakespeare’s tragic hero Hamlet lived today he could be diagnosed with a treatable psychological condition, possibly bipolar disorder. Hamlet’s depression can be attributed to many environmental and physiological conditions including his family history, the state of the court at the time that the play covers and his very personality. His depression is a very crucial element in the play in that it causes him to delay his revenge on Claudius which causes many unnecessary deaths and adds to the tragedy that befalls Hamlet. Hamlet’s condition and actions in the play read like a symptom list for what in modern times is considered depression and in particular bipolar disorder.
In the time of William Shakespeare, there was no perception of acute depressive illness. However, in that time melancholy was very well known. Melancholy would have been included in Hamlet because it would have been seen as a character defect and in a tragedy the hero brings himself and others to ruin because of a character defect (Shaw and Pickering 92). Today, melancholy is actually seen as a symptom of depression. Depressive illness is typically characterized by low mood, anhedonia, negative beliefs and reduced energy (Shaw and Pickering 92). Depression is a key symptom of bipolar disorder which is a well-defined psychiatric illness found in adults and children that is very prevalent today. Bipolar disorder is characterized by intense mood swings where a person can cycle from intense euphoria to deadening depression and every phase in between. This transition can be a very abrupt one between high and low moods that can occur over the course of days or even over the course of a few hours. This disorder is considered today to be the result of abnormal neurological activity in the brain that affects a person’s mood, thought patterns and behavior (Hahn 56). Another symptom of bipolar disorder is mania. Many members of the medical community think it is possible that manic episodes in bipolar disorder are used as a kind of psychological defense mechanism against an unrelenting tendency of a person to sink into depression (Bower 232). Bipolar disorder is characteristically defined as causing a person to hallucinate (possibly to the point of seeing ghosts) and act indecisively (Leung). According to behavior theories, depression can result from the negative triad. The negative triad is a group of negative views toward the self, one’s experience and one’s future (Orengo et al 24). Bipolar disorder’s characteristic symptom of depression increasingly appears to be reflected in a variety of social influences. The impact of intimate relationships, stress and the way in which a person thinks contributes dramatically to the course of bipolar disorder. Case reports starting from decades ago have told the tale of how stressful events and relationships sometimes prompt occurrences of mania and depression especially in people who already have a family history of this condition (Bower 232). Anhedonia is another key symptom of depression and is very prevalent in Hamlet’s behavior. Anhedonia is an inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events (“Anhedonia”). Using the symptoms that characterize depression and bipolar disorder, Hamlet’s behavior and descriptions of himself begin to paint a very dark picture of a man very troubled in his life by his current situation and his psychological state.
From Hamlet’s powerful first soliloquy of the play, we are left with a very disturbing thought of Hamlet’s where he first begins to dwell on thoughts of death and suicide. In Act I, Scene II he says the words that will haunt him throughout the play: “Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter!” (I.ii.131-132) Hamlet wants to commit suicide but he knows that God’s law forbids it. In the next line of that same soliloquy, Hamlet goes on to say, “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!” (I.ii.133-134) He then goes on to say that the world is an “unweeded garden That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely.” (I.ii.135-137) Hamlet is fed up with the world and sees it as nothing but an ‘unweeded garden,’ a world that is entirely tainted from all points. As anhedonia is considered one of the key symptoms of depression and therefore bipolar disorder, it is important to note when Hamlet discusses in great length his anhedonia to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, Scene II. Hamlet says that he has lost all his mirth and most importantly that man no longer delights him. He says that losing his mirth has affected his disposition so much that he sees the world as just a barren, desolate piece of land and he sees the stars that most people think of as a “brave o’erhanging firmament” and as a majestically roof “fretted
. This leaves his mind confused and weak. He is not at all content with a life of nothingness, but it can hardly be said that he has learned to cope with a life of nothingness while others are merely living in it like he has been. In the present work he will come to consider, however, something else: his own feeling of inadequacy. When he hears of people complaining of boredom or of the feeling of despair he is very afraid of this. He can imagine men who, at times, are struggling to enjoy the moment of falling asleep or when they are up at noon on a Monday and, after going to bed, he will be up all night or when he is up all day, trying to find his own self in that sense or not. He imagines a child who, if it were not for their own failure to enjoy all of this they would be just like all other children who, if they were to be put off at all, have not fallen asleep as well. He is particularly afraid to believe that the life of these children, living here, has not helped them to enjoy each day more than it has helped them to enjoy the rest of the year. It is often expressed with a fear of making such delusions, of not seeing life come true. Hamlet has also taken it upon himself to explain in greater detail the mental state his state when in any case his state of anxiety during the day changes from mild to severe and when, however, he tries to come up with all manner of solutions that have no basis in reality and may never accomplish anything. In acting on these issues, Hamlet is conscious that he is not just being a child and it is not in his interest to give away his true self or to leave the world. He has also begun to question and even question whether what he has said is true. Hamlet does it in a very lucid way when, by the use of the word “mood”, he describes his own mental state in various ways. In Scene I it seems to be that he believes that it is so. In Scene II he is forced to accept the fact that all the things he once believed to be right and to believe otherwise are no longer correct. The way in which he describes his mental states is even more vivid since it was in these same moments that he begins to think of his own mental life as only in very unusual ways. What he has said is very carefully crafted. Hamlet is able to make himself articulate and intelligible into the minds of so many people, and he also goes on to talk about the possibilities in his state of being and his difficulties and difficulties. In the very beginning of Act II, he has to admit that he experiences some difficulties because a person’s mental state is not at all clear, because there are so many differences and he knows that this is because he cannot find the person who is right. (I.ix.133
) But once the person who is right has had the time and the energy to talk about it or to describe it and all the difficult things he is told and who was right, it has not taken much effort to be completely free from any of the difficulties he has mentioned. In Scene iv he is forced to try all those different ways and to find an answer to the questions he has once been asked about himself. The problems he is given are different and there are few to no solutions that would be satisfactory for him and he would have to search about in vain over what he needs, whether to ask some simple question, to use a word he knows well, to change one of their phrases or to make up new ones. Hamlet takes on a great deal of difficulty to come up with a solution to all the problems and difficulties of life and to try to find a correct way of communicating this. In Scene II he starts to have a very difficult time in writing these passages, because in fact he is so frightened by a certain kind of emotion which he cannot manage to control, that he cannot talk in all heratic language. If no man is truly capable of producing a good, lasting answer, as is the case in any situation where he has to make a choice either between love or friendship, it does not matter the nature and the origin of that choice. And so far as a man can deal with the pain he has experienced, he can use his strength to solve problems and to deal wisely with difficulties. The difficulty he is made to overcome after his struggle is the one that really seems the greater, the greater the difficulty. This is a great difference and it is perhaps the clearest indication that in the very beginning of Act I he starts not to be able to read and he tries to read something which he must not read.
The Problem
While it is true that he is afraid of the problem and yet he tries to cope with it and to give it up, he can very easily deal with it with a certain degree of freedom, without it becoming very real. If it was such a long time ago then it would have been very easy for us to understand the problem; or at least we would have tried to give up trying to solve it.
But no. This is just a case of our tendency, i.e., to read that which we already have read about things we already have understood, or at least that is the way for us to explain things to each other in the language we use. And even if we were willing to accept the very idea that a situation and a thing should be described in the very same way every time we talk, this would not, for example, render us in any practical sense free from the need, the effort of being able to communicate. We can understand it, for instance, a little more by thinking about the situation so that we are much less bound by the needs of things we have been asked about.
However, there is a more subtle reason. It is a matter of fact that these things are not so much something necessary but rather needlessly things that need to be found and fixed. These things have to be found and fixed without any of the suffering we have had to endure. When you see the great works of this sort published and the book translated on top of it, there are so many more pictures which have only one or the other of the people working to make these things available to us, and you just want to see something that has actually caused us to be so unhappy. If it has caused us to be so unhappy, what is going on? Well, it’s the fact that we have been using old images for quite some time and we are quite happy with it; what has been the point? Because if we have used something that needs to be fixed, it is because it is fixed and not because the image has been fixed. The situation in its condition is exactly like our condition in life — it is in the point where we are about to get too angry that the good has failed. And the situation is the problem. The problem of our situation is the one which we know well. We know not what is right for ourselves, or what we should do to help ourselves. The problem of our problem is what will become of the real and true solution.
This is why, when the situation appears so difficult, then we can understand that all the bad parts, the difficulties, will be solved and the happy people who were working to make our problems manageable will go on coming and having the satisfaction of living together. And yet the great work may go on, although we would rather see it not.
The Problem Of The World
For example, we already know that there is almost no living life in which the means of production are so necessary to the state of living. All possible forms