Hamlet's Oedipal Complex

From left-right: Polonius, Gertrude/Ophelia, Hamlet/Fortinbras, King Hamlet/Claudius, Leartes/Horatio.


Yesterday I had a chance to catch a production of Hamlet performed by Actors from the London Stage. This version had only 5 actors, who took on multiple identities, a technique that reveals different strands of Hamlet criticism, all packed into a single performance, a single writing.

Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, was played by the same woman who played his lover, Ophelia. By doing so, this version emphasizes the oedipal tensions inherent in the play. In the original version, Hamlet seems obsessed with his mother's sexual appetite, and her marriage to his uncle soon after Hamlet's father's death. Towards the end of the play, Hamlet steals into his mother's closet and implores her to shun her lustful nature and to remain faithful to the memory of his father. Many adaptations have exploited this scene in bodice ripping ways on screen, where Hamlet is not much younger than his mother, who is a beautiful, voluptious, scarcely-clad seductress. However, this version went further to suggest that she could in fact have been his lover, for she plays Ophelia. In the original play, Ophelia, Polonius' daughter, is Hamlet's lover, who he later torments and accuses of betraying him.

When Hamlet claims to see the ghost of his father, we can't help but question his credibility. Was the apparition a manifestation of Hamlet's scattered thoughts that was spinning out of control? Was the ghost nothing but voices that Hamlet heard in his own head? Was the ghost something the guards made up on a whim as they were searching for new leader? And more importantly, we wonder what the ghost's purpose was in appearing in front of Hamlet.

In this version, the same actor played the ghost as well as Claudius, Hamlet's uncle who Hamlet believes is the cause of his father's death. By doing so, this version suggests that perhaps Claudius could have duped Hamlet, played a trick on his sensiblities. Also, this makes Hamlet's oedipal complex seem more aggessive because his anger at Claudius then translates to his anger for his father, whom he cannot quite bring himself to admit openly. Thus, the father figure is split in two to reveal the love/hate aspect of Hamlet's relationship to that individual, his overwhelming desire for his mother, and jealousy at being unable to unite with her. Morever, the ghost doesn't appear in front of Hamlet in this version, but rather, behind him, so that we really are not sure if all this is just a construct in Hamlet's mind, a mere conjecture.