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Hamlet & Social Psych...

The play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, allows us an excellent opportunity to apply the concepts and theories of social psychology, particularly Emile Durkheim’s theory of suicide. Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark whose father has been murdered by his uncle, Claudius, to gain the throne. In the collection of the throne Claudius also collects Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, for his wife. Hamlet is an intellectual whose recognition that he must murder his uncle in order to avenge his father’s death freezes him in inaction throughout most of the play. During this inaction, Hamlet continues to contemplate the corrupt nature of Denmark and wrestles with depression and deep bouts of melancholia balanced by fits of hysteria as he contemplates the murder of his uncle and also his own death. Suicidal feelings are engendered in Hamlet, a character who gives his “death speech” early in the play; a speech that informs us he is seriously contemplating suicide, even though he lacks the necessary “resolution” to carry out the ultimate act of self-destruction at the time it is rendered:

To be, or not to be,-that is the question:-

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

Any by opposing end them?-To die,-to sleep,-

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,-‘tis a consummation

The social psychology theories of Emile Durkheim, with regard to suicide, may be readily applied to a fuller understanding of the characters and action in Hamlet. Durkheim argued that one of the biggest forces in promoting suicidal ideation within the individual is the social environment in which they exist. Durkheim argued that there is a direct causal relationship between individual suicide and social environment. Durkheim argued that biological and psychological factors are not ...

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Hamlet & Social Psych.... (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:07, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1685609.html