Hamlet Does Not Want to Shtup His Mother

A competitor notion to that weird Oedipal theory

I presume you’ve heard of Freud’s famous analysis of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, in which Freud speculates that the reason Prince Hamlet endlessly delays his revenge is that he is caught in a tortuous psychological dilemma: Prince Hamlet, harbouring an Oedipus complex, has always unconsciously wanted to bump off his dad and shtup his mom. Now that his uncle Claudius has been the one to actually fulfill this repressed wish, Prince Hamlet unconsciously identifies with Claudius, the very man he consciously thinks he wants to kill. Hence his paralysis.

As I have written elsewhere, I am not buying it that Hamlet is indecisive. I have likewise never been able to buy it that Hamlet wants to shtup his mother.

But we do have that famous bedchamber scene. What to make of it?

To recap, the backstory is this: The king of Denmark is named Hamlet, his wife is Gertrude, and they have an adult son also called Hamlet. While Prince Hamlet is off at university, King Hamlet falls dead in the prime of life. Prince Hamlet returns home to mourn his father only to find that Gertrude has already remarried; he is shocked, not only that his mother has wed again so soon, but moreso that her new husband is her late husband’s brother, Claudius…