Shakespeare Was No Freudian
But Freud Was a Big Fan of the Bard
Wikimedia Commons - Sebastian Bieniek, “Small Face No. 1“, 2017. Model: actor Lars Eidinger as Hamlet. Oeuvre of Bieniek-Face. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:02-Small-Face-No-1_by_SebastianBieniek-Model_Lars_Eidinger_2007_Hamlet.jpg
Sigmund Freud had little reticence about diagnosing fictional characters, especially those who he believed to illustrate his ideas about the sexual origins of mental disorders.1 Most notably, his fascination fixed on Hamlet, whom he famously diagnosed with an Oedipus complex.2
If you are familiar with the play, you will recall that Prince Hamlet came home from his studies at the university in Wittenburg, Germany, to find something rotten in Denmark: His father was dead and Uncle Claudius had replaced Dad on the throne. Making matters more complicated, his mother, Gertrude, was now Claudius’ wife. Had there been foul play? Yes, insisted a ghost resembling his father that appeared on the parapets each night, declaring that Uncle Claudius had murdered the king.
Harking back to Greek mythology, you may recall the story of Oedipus, which Freud believed to foreshadow Hamlet’s response to his family problems. In that tale, as told by the playwright Sophocles, it is not a ghost but a seer who triggers the kingdom’s chaos. When King Laius of Thebes consults the Delphic oracle, he learns that his newborn son will grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. To head off this calamity, the royal parents order a servant to leave the baby Oedipus3 on a hillside in the wilderness to die of exposure.4 But the kind-hearted servant passes the baby on to a shepherd who takes it to the king and queen of Corinth who, in turn, raise young Oedipus to adulthood as their own child.
Unaware of his actual parentage, Oedipus eventually consults the oracle at Delphi, who tells him of the prophecy, whereupon he leaves Corinth—thinking the prophecy refers to the king and queen who raised him there. As Fate would have it, Oedipus’ travels take him toward Thebes where he was born. Nearing the city, he meets a quarrelsome man who challenges him. Himself strong of will and strength, Oedipus kills him, not realizing the man is his father.
Upon arrival at Thebes, Oedipus finds the city under siege by a sphinx5 who demands that he solve a riddle before being allowed to enter. Oedipus, clever fellow that he is, supplies the correct answer, thereby defeating the sphinx, which kills herself. Whereupon, the grateful Thebans award Oedipus the hand in marriage of its recently widowed Queen Jocasta, who he does not realize is his mother. Thus, the prophecy of the Delphic oracle is fulfilled.
Years later, when Oedipus decides to search for the murderer of King Laius, his predecessor, he learns from the oracle that he, himself, is the man he is seeking. As the sordid story unravels, Oedipus realizes that the old prophecy has come true: He has killed his father and married his mother. Hearing the news, Queen Jocasta hangs herself, whereupon Oedipus blinds himself with the pins from the large brooches on her gown.
In Sophocles’ version of the story, told in Oedipus Rex, the play ends with the chorus telling the famous Greek moral that no man should be considered fortunate or having lived a happy life until he is dead.6
Sigmund Freud taught that the Oedipus story was the story of every man, for it contained the key to understanding the psychosexual development of all young men.7 His argument rested on the premise that a young boy’s first love is for his mother. But as the boy grows older, his love becomes lust, which is so threatening that he must repress the notion by burying it in his unconscious. Simultaneously, his unconscious seethes with fear of and hatred for his father, whom he (also unconsciously) regards as a rival for his mother’s affections. According to Freud, then, all young boys struggle with the desire to rid themselves of their fathers. But since all this occurs in the caldron of desire below the surface of awareness, the “normal” young man sublimates8 these unconscious desires by taking on manful characteristics (like his father’s) and finding a mate with qualities like Mom’s. Thus, the Oedipus complex is resolved. Those who fail to do so are fated to a life of mental problems, usually of a sexual nature.
How might all this apply to a Hamlet with an Oedipus complex? Even though Hamlet’s father has died, his mother is married to another man who is also the prince’s rival for her affections. Beyond that, Hamlet would wonder how long Mom and Uncle Claudius have been carrying on sexually, perhaps for years—in which case Claudius could be Hamlet’s father! Again, note the parallel with Oedipus, who also misunderstood who his biological parents were.
These days, most psychologists have moved beyond Freud and his acolytes, the likes of Carl Jung, Ernest Jones, and Otto Rank. While these earlier attempts to explain mental disorders make for titillating reading, psychology and neuroscience have shown that Freud’s psychoanalytic model of the mind, filled with forbidden desires and at war with itself, does not hold up to scientific scrutiny.
In our book, Psychology According to Shakespeare, Philip Zimbardo and I have argued that nothing in Shakespeare requires invoking the Freudian model of the unconscious.9 Moreover, in Shakespeare’s time, there were no terms in the English language that distinguished consciousness from the unconscious.
So, what is the modern model of mind suggested by psychological science? And how does it compare with the Bard’s own view? That will be the topic for my next post.
If you are enjoying these posts, please consider getting a copy of our book, Psychology According to Shakespeare, by Philip Zimbardo and me (published in 2024 by Prometheus Books and available at bookstores everywhere).
Here is a peek at the table of contents, showing the featured plays illustrating each psychological topic:
Psychology According to Shakespeare
Prologue – Why Shakespeare and Psychology?
Introduction – Shakespeare’s Psychology and the Roots of Genius
Part I: Nature vs. Nurture
Chapter 1 – Nature-Nurture, Neuroscience, and the Brain of the Bard: The Tempest
Chapter 2 – The Ages and Stages of Man (and Woman): As You Like It
Part II: The Person vs. the Situation
Chapter 3 – Henrys, Humors, and the Psychology of Personality: Richard II – Henry V
Chapter 4 – Social Influence from Stratford to Stanford: Measure for Measure
Chapter 5 – Heroes Ancient and Modern, Major and Minor: Othello
Part III: Into the Mind
Chapter 6 – Sleep and Dreams: A Window into the Unconscious: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Chapter 7 – Mental Illness and Other Ill Humors: Richard III
Part IV: Reason vs. Emotion
Chapter 8 – Emotion, Motivation, and Elizabethan Love: Love’s Labour’s Lost
Chapter 9 – Reason, Intuition, and the Dithering Prince of Denmark: Hamlet
Epilogue – Psychology, Shakespeare, and Beyond
Freud’s theory posited two main motives driving our unconscious desires: sex and aggression.
Freud, Sigmund. 1997. The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by A. A. Brill. Wordsworth Classics of World Literature. Herts, UK: Wordsworth Editions.
See also: https://timeandnarrative.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/freud-and-hamlet/
King Laius had his son’s feet pierced and bound before being taken to die from exposure, hence the name Oedipus, meaning “swollen foot.”
Note the parallel in The Winter’s Tale, where the king orders a child to die by being abandoned in the wilderness. (See my previous post.)
Sphingses (yes, that is the plural!) are vicious, mythical creatures, each with the head of a woman, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. In the tale of Oedipus, the sphinx feeds on those who fail to answer her riddle but self-destructs when Oedipus gives the correct answer. You can find the riddle here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus
Sophocles, Oedipus: King of Thebes (Oedipus Rex). Gilbert Murray, trans. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27673/27673-h/27673-h.htm
According to Freud, young women follow a different path, dealing with an Electra complex. See, for example, https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-electra-complex-2795170
Sublimation: A mental process, proposed by Freud, whereby a person adopts thoughts and behaviors that serve to satisfy both their unconscious instincts or desires—especially sexual or aggressive ones—and the conscious need for socially acceptable behaviors, as in hitting a punching bag instead of a person.
Freud was not all wrong. We psychologists still revere him as a courageous pioneer and a keen observer of human behavior. He was on to something with, for example, his notion of ego defense mechanisms, by which we erect mental defenses—as when Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude comments, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks," or when an angry person yells at a nearby individual instead of at the one who angered him. Our quibble is with Freud’s model of the mind in which the conscious ego is largely unaware of the dangerous and forbidden sexual and aggressive urges boiling in the portion of the unconscious mind that he called the id.