Transcript for:
Hamlet Character Traits Analysis

hi everyone welcome to five quote Shakespeare Hamlet character analysis in this series we'll look at a total of nine n and a half characters and in this video we'll look at Hamlet what I do in each video is first identify important character traits of each character and then we analyze several quotes that prove the claim if you find these videos useful please like And subscribe and you can instantly download a copy of the PDFs I use in this series by visiting my shop and making a one-time purchase see the description for details as I'm sure you are aware Hamlet is one of the most frustratingly fascinating characters in all of literature he's full of contradictions he's a really really interesting character and I've broken down his personality into 14 different character traits and so you can scan these now and you can jump forward to the timestamps if you see something that you want to look at immediately but let's start with the most obvious he's an overthinker he he's a thinker and not a doer and that causes problems because this is a Revenge plot go see my revenge plot video and he can't do the job he's set out to do because he thinks too much so Shakespeare announces early in the play that he is really highly intelligent more intelligent than the people around him he announces his Supreme wit with the costic wordplay of the prince's very very first words uh kind can mean affectionate benevolent or natural and so Hamlet plays on this particular word here Claudius is announcing his his marriage to Gertrude and he's announcing his his fathership of his new son as well and Hamlet doesn't like that at all so Claudia says but now my cousin Hamlet and my son and Hamlet says we're not quite sure if this is an aside uh actually think it is an aside Shakespeare wrote an aside in there but most versions that I've seen of the of the stage version has him kind of Mumble it under his under his mouth so that everybody else can hear it under his breath so that everybody else can hear it and he says a little more than kin and less than kind now it's an odd phrase and you can roughly translated as this kin means family of course family relationship and he says no no no no we're not quite family the way you think that we're family so that's a bit of an overstatement there daddy uh and and kind can mean a couple of things as I said it can mean affectionate but benevolent or natural and he says and less than kind so you're you're not quite natural to me as a father and you're not quite kind to me as as as a as a as a person or as a son so no natural love exists between us so clever costic word play that's established early and this cleverness is evident throughout the play now Hamlet's intelligence would be fine in a Revenge play if he was like a John Wick or a Batman or something like that and he could say use his intelligence to do the job he has to do but he's he's doesn't have that kind of intelligence helmet's intelligence is not the shrewd pragmatic political kind that Claudius has he calls himself a John a dreams and that Jon a dreams is introspective poetic melancholic philosophical and theoretical and we're going to talk about that today so he is a formerly trained thinker we can't forget we can't forget this he he he's a student he's a really good student he's an older student too so he would have his equivalent of a PhD I suppose we would say today so he was a forly trained thinker he can skillfully see all sides of an issue and every delay in C caveat is Justified logically so when he says oh now might I do it Pat I have a good opportunity and he stops himself it's actually a pretty good reason and so we can blame his cowardice perhaps and I've talked about that before and we'll talk about that a bit today uh but at the same time we can simply say yeah what you're saying is is is actually quite intelligence intelligent so this intelligence leads to paralysis as we've talked about frustration shame and neurosis and hence we get the complications of this particular character okay so in act three this is the scene now might I do it pat he's ready to kill him he's got a great opportunity Claudius is praying vulnerable ready to be dispatched and Hamlet says wait a minute that would be scanned now might I do it pat now he goes to heaven wait a minute now I have to think about that so a villain kills my father and for that I his sole son do do this same villain send to heaven now this was uh uh this this was a Christian era that Shakespeare was writing in and people would have believed literally in a literal heaven and if he's If he if Hamlet kills him while he has after he has absolved himself of his sins by praying then he goes straight to heaven instead of Hell or to Purgatory which is where Hamlet's father went so Hamlet says why this is higher in salary not Revenge so he's a smart guy he considers all implications and then he fails to act Hamlet fails to act not because of thinking but because of overthinking so intelligence thinking per se is not the problem maladaptive thinking is and Hamlet himself is aware of his over incorrect thinking it's perhaps a curse of of or side effect of high intelligence neurotic personality lots of things we're going to talk about today but a curse or side effect of high intelligence and his his his friends recognize that both his fake friends and his real friends so when Hamlet meets Rosen K and Gilden for the first time uh he he he says to them he says there is nothing neither good or bad but thinking makes it so so he's kind of he's letting them know that he's having a hard time and he's a bit depressed and he says that that's a wonderful line I think there's nothing either good or bad but think he makes it makes it so to me Denmark is a prison he's not happy where he is and and Rosen crant says something that's actually quite wise he says why then your ambition makes it one you are thinking in a way that makes Denmark a prison which is actually true it's it's it's but you know modern psychology has determined that yeah it's an incorrect way of thinking it's a maladapted uh way of thinking it's a distorted way of thinking but that's that's what the depressed mind is and he does have clinical depression which we're going to talk about today too now Horatio agrees as well now this is the famous uh scene where he says uh where he holds up the skull and and he and he says to Horatio he says why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till it find it stopping the bung hole of a beer barrel so the plug of a beer barrel isn't that where this as great a person as as Alexander the Great was all he is now is dust that's stopping a beer barrel now that's this is the reason why we love this play is because it's full of this kind of real real existential ACC accurate sad poetry it's beautiful he's not wrong he's absolutely right but Horatio recognizes that yeah okay fine my friend have those poetic thoughts but you know what there's a life to be lived as well and Alexander didn't go around moping because he was going to die and end up as a as a plug in a beer barrel so Horatio says basically the same thing as Rosen CR says up here he says to her to consider too curiously to consider so it's like dude you know what yeah yeah fine but and then Hamlet Won't Give Up he says no faith not a jot and he goes on and on in his beautiful poetry which we all love because we all feel the way Hamlet feels but then we can turn it off once the movie is finished and we can go about our lives if we're not clinically depressed of course and we're going to talk about that today so Hamlet is not wrong but thinking of death is not the problem it's failing to think of life that is and that's the problem that he has and I like to point this out uh I love this picture of Einstein because it's not we when we're young we tend to be uh uh uh enamored of the melancholic mood or mode of existence uh and it's it's built into into the Adolescent wiring of the brain I suppose but it's really important to remember that that yeah fine these these you're correct when you have these melancholic poetic thoughts you're correct however you're you're you're incorrect in that you're failing to see the opposite side of things Einstein was no self-indulgent emo and he was a pretty smart guy right uh oh by the way visit these links these are in the PDF you can click these links and I talk a lot more about this in uh in in other videos okay so related to that high intelligence is his kind of intelligence which is dreamy and introspective if you're going up against a shrewd clever cunning McKellan like Claudius you should be the same kind of guy you should have the same kind of intelligence you should nurture that in yourself and not the dreamy introspective kind of poetic character that Hamlet is he wouldd rather be a pretend hero he loves he loves acting and he's he's he's got a histrionic personality disorder which we're going to talk about today and so he wants to live in this fantasy world he's like a cosplay hero I've called him I think in my in my revenge video series go watch that that's actually quite interesting so he calls himself a John of dreams and he would prefer spending his time alone with ideas philosophy art drama literature rather than the messy compromised real world politics of people and problems do you see he can't handle it especially the the compromised world he wants this idealized fictional World which is Frozen on a page or in in in in in the memory of an actor and it's and it's solid and it's understandable he doesn't like the messy real world uh so again when he's talking to roson cranon Gilden at the beginning of the play he says oh God I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of Infinite Space now doesn't that sound like an introvert uh Lord Byron famously said uh I go out and socialize to get me an appetite for being alone so that's that's the attitude of the introvert and we are born introverts or extroverts that you can look that up and and I think Hamlet was born an introvert and that's that's the that's the Declaration of an in of an introvert I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself the king of Infinite Space I'm happy to be alone here however of course he's got he's got a lot of uh neurotic disorders and clinical depression as we will see and so he says were it not that I have bad dreams so there's the depressed introvert it's fine to be an introvert but to be depressed is not so good so the only time Hamlet appears truly happy and in his element because he's out of an out of his element here of course uh dealing with Claudius the only time he he appears truly happy is when he's raving about the theater uh when when the players arrive he he seems legitimately energized and and happy to see them and this is from this scene here and he says uh you are welcome Masters welcome all I am glad to see thee well welcome good friends and the repetition of words uh suggests uh a kind of a Mania a kind of excited mental state uh the the racing mind so I'm glad to see the well welcome good friends oh my old friend why thy face is valent since I saw thee last so he spends he has spent time with these guys he loves these guys that he is in his element here uh and he says and then he gets up in this famous scene of course where he irritates all the actors because because he thinks he wants to be the center of attention in the actor as well and he says if it live in your memory please recite this poem for me that I remember you recited before begin at this line let me see let me see and then he tries to act it himself so he's he's this is where he would prefer to be back at University studying philosophy and engaging in these kinds of uh uh activities artsy activities um and there there's some more evidence too later on in act three Rosen CR says to uh the king to Claudius and gertrud he says when I told Hamlet of the player's arrival he seemed really excited so of the players we told Hamlet and there did seem in him a kind of joy to hear it and there's a double meaning here because he's happy to hear about the players coming because he's going to come up with a plan the plays the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king but as we've seen up here I actually do believe it's it's also partly because he he's happy to see uh his his old friends and he can be himself again DC when he when he's dealing with claudus he's not in his in his element okay so honest and naive that very often comes from highly intelligent introspective kind of dreamy characters and that's a problem too Hamlet's honest nature and naive his 30 years old he shouldn't be naive anymore but he is because he's been stuck in this bubble of university life I think for too long so that's arrested his adolesence I I've argued so hamet's honest nature and naive make it difficult for him to play the ruthless mock of ellian which is which is what he should have been training for as a younger man but by the time you're 30 you should be there already in act one he's genuinely surprised when he when when the ghost tells him that Claudius uh uh murdered King Hamlet he's genely surprised that self-serving manipulative Psychopaths exist now that's not the a good quality in a future king if he didn't die at the end of this play he might have evolved by the time he's 40 or maybe even faster uh but but at this stage in his life he's not ready for this kind of stuff and he should have learned that long time ago like a shrewd political mover and a Shaker would understand the other Mo aels in the world much much earlier than the age of 30 so he says here at the once he's after he's talked to the ghost He says oh villain villain smiling damned villain my tables now this is the notepad this it's the it's school boy language that he uses here and Shakespeare uses it uh uh to purpose it says in in my notebooks it is it is appropriate that I set it down in my notebooks that someone may smile this is how the world works that one may smile and smile and be a villain oh this is how it works oh let me take a note on how the world Works me the Future King DC so yeah he's not cut out for this job at this stage in his life anyway uh see my video of melanism I go into a bit more detail on that uh I love David Tenant here uh all my videos uh uh use the David Tenant version in 2009 as one of my favorites uh and and I love this he captures it lovely he brilliantly I think he likes the intellectual challeng I think he loves the the revelation of this it's new information to him and so is he really reluctant to become the makel yeah probably but he's excited at the same time so there's the complexity uh now if you want further proof for what I've been claiming the shrewd Claudius recognizes and remember when the Nemesis when somebody's enemy somebody who hates somebody else says something about another person then you can well then you especially if they make a compliment or an observation that's going to that's going to be self- serving you can probably uh uh assume that it's true so late in the play Claudius is talking to leres and they're plotting to kill uh uh uh to kill Hamlet uh by tricking him and he says to he says to larities he says Hamlet being remiss most generous and free from all contriving so there's a compliment and if you comp compliment your enemy then yeah that compliment is probably uh accurate he's free from all contriving and he will not look at the foil so we're going to poison the tip of the foil and Hamlet is so naive and trusting I've observed him because I'm shrewd and I've been observing him my whole life and I know know that he's this kind of guy and so we can trick him easily so that's good proof uh uh for for for the claim that that uh that he is this honest naive kind of guy he's he's he's too old to be so young uh unlike Claudius Hamlet honestly owns up to his transgressions so here are some more evidence to prove that he's actually kind of an honest person now a true psychopath like Claudius would never apologize for anything anything anything uh but Hamlet does several times in the play except to poor ofilia um and which is really interesting and that's the subject for another another video uh so Hamlet says to uh to to Horatio he says uh but I'm very sorry good Horatio that to larities I had forgot myself now do you remember the scene where he jumps uh with oia's funeral scene where uh Hamlet jumps into the grave and he bullies uh layer te and then he cools down we're going to talk about the reasons for that that's that's because of his personality disorders that's why he does that uh but then afterwards he realizes that boy did I ever act like a jerk and he actually apologizes and he says I'm going to make it up to him is what he says later on but that's a short quote so yeah so that proves that he is that he is honest and these these prove that he's naive and again not great for a future king now related to all of that is his highly sensitive nature uh this is a thing HSP a highly sensitive person person and I think we can put compassionate together with that but there's a question mark at the end of that Hamlet is naturally high in negative emotion neuroticism we can be born with these personality traits and I do believe that that's the way if he were alive today and he was on the psychiatrist's couch then then this would be the diagnosis I am absolutely sure he's easily hurt and outraged by the sheer Cosmic Injustice of being the sheer Cosmic Injustice of being yes why not be outraged go watch my existentialism V video he's right to be outraged at the Injustice of of creation of being itself but again as I've mentioned it's that it's the failure to look at the positives in life that that cause him this problem um so there's been there's a failure here in this highly sensitive per uh person to outgrow IDE adolescent idealism sure fine be born this kind of person be born hideen neurotic high high in neuroticism but learn ways to to to to counterbalance the other truths that you are seeing with other truths that also exist you see that's what Hamlet has a hard time doing he's easily hurt by existence if you watch the you know to be or not to be soliloquies and a lot of the other soliloquies and speeches too are beautiful beautiful exist essal poetry it really really is and it's all true but again it's it's it's only one side of the story he's easily hurt by existence he says and in one of his soliloquies and to be or not to be Soliloquy he says and by as sleep to say we end the heartache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is air to yes young man yes life is air to that we do suffer the Thousand natural shocks of existence what are you going to do about it kill yourself and and and miss out on all the fun while we're here yeah that's that's the big question to be or not to be indeed so uh so in again to go back to his sensitivity there's that's the existential sensitivity of course but we also see when he kills people he does everything indirectly I'm going to talk about that in detail later on but but he does kill people and and and then he expresses this regret again regret that would not cross the mouth of a psychopath like Claudius so when he kills ponus he says for this same Lord when he's going to pull away the body he says for the same Lord I do repent I will bestow him and will answer well the death I gave him I'll explain to everyone what I did he'll take responsibility that's Noble it's really really Noble so as soon as he Hamlet does something really stupid and irritating and makes us want to slap him uh he says something uh uh magnanimous like this uh and it makes it impossible for us to absolutely hate the guy although he irritates the hell out of us uh Gertrude backs this up and she says to Claudius she says uh she defends her son and says he weeps for what is done so the question is is he really weeping or is Gertrude lying to try to protect him from the Wrath of the law of Claudius uh I I really don't know I'm I'm right on the fence about this I suspect that maybe he was uh weeping and it depends on the director and the actor and how they want to portray the character is really really soft Kenneth branck the 1996 version showed Hamlet as more of a fiery kind of stealy masculine guy uh the David Tenant version um not a more more manic uh uh a more version uh similarly Hamlet kills Rosen cron Gilden Stern yeah that's really really brutal but he doesn't stick him with a knife he doesn't shoot him in the face uh he he kills him at a distance he lets somebody else do the job which we're going to talk about today Hamet kills rosin CR and Gilden but with his very very very last breath on Earth he expresses concern for them and now I can't I don't know what to make of that except the fact that he's he's deeply deeply regretful of what he's done his very last breath 5 scene 2 just before he expires he says I cannot live to hear the news from England and I've argued in other places that yeah a guy like Claudius on his his dying breath would be me me me that's all Claudius would have in his mind but he thinks about what happened to Rosen CR and Gilden when he sent them off to their deaths in England it's very very interesting it's so smart on Shakespeare's part so so smart to add that little complication in there such a great character so this Sensi ity all of what we've been talking about partly explains H's inability and hesitation to kill Claudius it's tough go watch my uh act thought versus action video there I talked there about Lord of the Flies and in The Lord of the Flies the boys are on a deserted island and they have to become Savages in order to survive they have to be able to kill a pig with their own bare hands and a stick now is there anybody out there watching this video that could actually take a chicken and take a knife and cut the head off the chicken to eat the chicken it's no we we we are way too soft civilized DC and I think Hamlet is as well and the the sheer fact of okay fine you got the knife there above claudius's head when he's praying what are you going to do you going to plunge that knife into between someone's shoulder blades can you really do that Hamlet is not that kind of guy at all and that's that's that kind of sensitivity that highly sensitive person aspect of him makes it difficult for him to do the job that a he a Revenge hero is supposed to do again so go back and watch that video and that I explain that in more detail there so for all of these four reasons that we've already talked about make him a failed hero the wrong man for the job all heroes must have something of the beast in them otherwise they can't do the job of protecting Innocents against cruelty uh against the Psychopaths against people like like Claudius they have to have some of Claudius in them which is what makes Harry Potter so brilliant he speaks parcel tongue Harry Potter has some of the snake this this is a Nini this is this is Voldemort's uh uh uh spirit animal I suppose it is uh and and Harry can talk to them Harry has a bit of Voldemort in him he has a bit of evil in him and that that is what makes him the chosen one uh Hamlet doesn't have enough of the beast in him or he he does I suppose but it's a stifled Beast it's it's a twisted Beast it's a beast that's been made inadequate by his over long stay in the bubble of University perhaps uh that's an interesting way to think of it so I talk about that in these videos I got three videos on the Revenge plot I find it very very interesting I talk about the Revenge hero here and I talk about it again in the hero's Quest video have a look at that so halet introspective intelligence naivity and sensitivity all the things we just talked about make it difficult for him to take heroic action and claim his throne more than difficult makes it almost impossible as we said the hero must be capable of playing the ruthless makavelian game it's a game and you have to be ready to do that if you are the hero that's what we love Batman for he's a fascinating character because he's he's he's fighting for the good but he's using his evil to his his innate evil he's got a dark side that's why we call him the Dark Knight he's got that in him but he uses that for good that's what makes a good hero the same thing with Harry Potter they must be part be Beast now in this particular play and I've I've explored that in the hero's Quest and in the Revenge plot specifically uh in this particular play there there there there's there's two worlds at play Hamlet is representative of the more modern Christian era and Hamlet's father is depicted as this this heroic age hero like Achilles and Agamemnon the old Greeks the old Bale wolf where yeah that's what a hero was it wasn't any nothing to do with thinking it was all about strategy and sheer murder really so the hero of a of of the heroic age like his father would have killed whoever needed killing without weeping and without relying on indirection or distance to soften the impact on his psyche that's what we talked about Hamlet has a hard time killing and he kills everybody from some kind of a distance because it does imp changes your psyche when you got the beast in you your psyche is different than this naive soft you know University educated uh uh a protected young person yeah he he he the can you imagine Claudius weeping for killing his brother he smiles and he's happy that he that that he did it because he's got everything that he wanted okay so so Hamlet has a hard time with this and and and like I said the beast-like actions that he does take are take P are taken passive aggressively which we're going to talk about later so Hamlet knows this he knows that he's not cut out for this hero role and he announces it early Shakespeare announces this uh variation on the Revenge plan early it is a variation on the Revenge plot the Revenge plot did have specific requirements and I break that down in these videos and and Hamlet is a variation on a very popular genre in the elizabe Elizabethan period Shakespeare said okay well let's take the Revenge plot and put in a hero that's not cut out for the Revenge plot and let's see how things go Hamlet uh Shakespeare plays that experiment it's very very interesting so famously of course very very early in the play Hamlet says the time is out a joint The World Is A Wasteland that's what the hero's Quest is all about the Wasteland the world is a Wast land oh cursed spite that ever I was born to heal it or or ever that ever oh cursed spite that ever I was born to to to set it right okay so compare that dithering compare that that that that sense of inadequacy that lack of confidence uh and and and firm action with layeres which is what we're going to look at right now Hamlet repeats his reluctance and shame several times what we've just talked about he repeats that several several times in the whole play It's All About Him thinking oh what a peasant slave Rogue that I am and early on again in this in in in a similar spot in act 1 scene 2 Hamlet makes an illusion to Hercules the her the illusion to Hercules the epitome of heroic action is particularly telling now leres is much more of a herculan kind of character Hamlet says Claudius is no more like my father than I to Hercules that's that's his uh that that's his lament he wants to be this heroic age heroic age hero and he knows that he's not D you see so the psychological projection of Hamlet's father reprimanding his son reveals the depth of his shame at being an unfit hero so later on in the play when uh he's Chast Hamlet is chastising his mother the ghost of his father appears the ghost of the heroic age appears and says son why aren't you being the hero that you're supposed to be and Hamlet says to his the ghost of his dad he sayso not come your tardy son to chide that lapsed in time and passion let's go by the important acting of your dread command oh say so please don't chastise me for being this soft University trained philosopher I want to be the hero but I can't and the Ghost says do not forget this visitation is but to wet thy almost blunted purpose so he he doesn't mince words here he says dude dude you're the hero get on with it now the fact that Gert can't see this particular project projection suggests that it's a psychological app Apparition it's both of course because at the beginning of the play everybody including Horatio did see the ghost but here strangely why do Shakespeare all of a sudden have gertude not able to see him it's very very interesting so he want so Shakespeare wants to emphasize the psychological component of this hamet's projecting out uh uh onto onto the ghost his own sense of inadequacy the terror of the Father the father saying you're not you're not adequate so throughout the play Shakespeare contrasts Hamlet Hamlet's unheroic dithering with claudius's ruthlessness of course that's very very obvious Claudius wants something takes it that's what he does unlike Hamlet Lees too though we we sometimes forget that these are both character foils uh Lees and Claudius are character foils to Hamlet and and they're not dithering at all leres has a single-minded purpose as soon as he hears that Hamlet killed his father he comes back and he says give me my father I want his body and I want to do what's right and I'm going to get my revenge and I'll kill you King and I don't be damn to consequences Hamlet is not that kind of guy at all so larity says to to to Claudius when he confronts him he says I dare damnation now if you remember in in when the now might I do it pat scene where Hamlet is ready to kill Claudius he starts to think about the afterlife uh none of that kind of intellectualizing with layer te he says go ahead I'll go to hell I don't care if I'm going to hell I don't care if you're going to hell I don't care what happens I'm going to do what I have to do because I'm a heroic age hero he says I dare damnation to this point I stand that both the worlds I give to negligence let come what comes only I'll be revenged mo most thoroughly for my father and if you listen to the Rhythm the Cadence of that it's it's not the soft dithering romantic kind of uh uh musings it's very very forceful there's no dithering with conscience and there's no dithering with god with ler DC so again sharp sharp contrast to Hamlet he's not cut out for this he's not that heroic type okay so let's continue on with his idealism absolutism his moralizing and his puritanism ironically one of the characteristics of a good hero is that there are an idealists they have an ideal in mind and they strive to bring that forth into the world in Hamlet's case though it it it's it's pathological and we're going to have a look at why and Sh contrast to shrewd worldly Claudius as we've seen Hamlet is uncomfortable in the messy real world he wants an ideal world he insists upon an Ideal World and and ideal people and when he doesn't get it it causes him kind of this schizophrenic crackup for reasons we we're going to talk about so he demands perfection in himself and and in others and one flaw he sees as corrupting the whole this is an example of black black or white thinking it's actually technically called splitting you can look that up on Google or you can click this link here uh it's black or white thinking it has to be all this or all that he can't find a compromise and someone a political mover and a Shaker even just a person who's well adjusted to the world recognizes that you can't have you can't have that perfect ideal negative or positive the perfect negative ideal doesn't exist either not all people are as corrupt as you think they are simply because they have one little flaw but hamy can't stand that DC the inevit able tension is impossible to sustain as I said and causes a kind of schizophrenic crack up a kind of mental breakdown that tension is just extreme it's called splitting and it's not healthy ironically Hamlet himself criticizes this black or white thinking he laments the fact that people can't appreciate or tolerate complexity in others and yet he is the absolute worst offender this is where he says in act one scene 4 he says to Horatio when he's uh when he's talking about uh when he's complaining about Denmark being a place where everyone's just partying all the time he hates that and Hamlet says to her is he says uh uh it's giving us a bad reputation because we're partying so much the all of Europe thinks that we're a bunch of Partiers now again this is Hamlet's idea I don't necessarily TR know if that's true or not doesn't probably not uh but anyway these men carrying as I say the stamp of one defect his virtues else being as pure as grace shall in the general population censure take corruption from that particular fault so because Denmark has this one fault of we like to party a little bit too much the whole of the world which means Europe thinks Denmark's a basket case do you see what I'm saying so he it's that all or nothing thinking we're either all perfect and never drink and we're pure tanal and to the extreme and we're good good proper people or we are these kind this kind of Basket Case now ironically again as I said this is exactly what he does to women because women have one particular fault he just completely writes them off as these absolute corrupt uh uh horrible horrible people that's where his misogyny comes from so most obviously Hamlet tires all women including ofilia brutally with gertrud's crimes now I Gertrude has made transgressions whether or not they're crimes or not I'm not sure uh but but Hamet certainly perceives them as such I got a whole video on this so go watch that as well Gert is a very very complex interesting character so he's screaming at of course most brutally he's screaming at opilia here and he's basically saying all you women are the same you're all corrupt you're all is basically what he's saying and he says um the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is Honesty will be changed into a into a bod rather than the force of honesty can translate Beauty into its likeness so Beauty and honesty cannot be compatible at all any beautiful woman any which means basically any woman is going to be a and and so he's he's just because they might have that vanity there's that one little defect in a woman maybe she's a bit vain but that vanity is going to make her into a so he's he's guilty of doing exactly what he complained about here uh it's not healthy it's not healthy at all it's puritanical so how Pur iCal nature puts him at odds with his entire culture uh an idealized version of correct Behavior so as we as we've already suggested there's nothing wrong with a little partying do you see but he can't com compartmentalize he can't separate the weekend guy or he can't unite the weekend guy from the weekday guy do you see they are the same guy and that's fine we can let loose we have to let loose a little bit I've talked in other videos about in my puritanism V video go do have a look at that this is really really interesting um Shakespeare in a lot of his plays he's he he sees characters having a hard time uniting harmonizing the nobler aspects of us the intellectualizing aspects of us the philosophical the artistic the scientific aspects of us Shakespeare has a sees characters that have a hard time harmonizing that aspect of us with our lower energies the higher energies versus the lower energies the dionan earthiness of us and the apollonian Divine as aspect of us a lot of characters in Shakespeare and everyday life have a hard time harmonizing these and this is certainly the problem with Hamlet he can't compartmentalize here's the weekend us let's enjoy ourselves a little bit cut loose and here's the weekday us the guy who gets some work done the woman who gets them work done so hamy can't have that you got to be all or nothing you got to be black or white that's it there's no nowhere in between so uh ham here he is complaining as I've said we' we've just talked about this scene so the king doth wake tonight and take his Rouse keeps wasel and the swaggering upswing reels what that means is they're they're having a party they're drinking and they're dancing they're dancing and Horatio says is it the custom here in Denmark and Hamlet laments I yes it is the custom here but to my mind though I am native here I am of this world this is my culture but I'm alienated from this culture we're going to talk about alienation soon too so I am from this place but I think that I am to the manner born I am born into this culture however it is a custom more honored in the breach than the in the observance I think it's more honorable to break that custom and not party really than it is to observe the custom and to parity so well I'm not quite sure I'm not quite sure is he being a priggish Puritan and he sees dissolution and Corruption rather than simple joy that's definitely part of it but is Claudius a kind of pig is there too much of that stuff going on maybe we don't quite know DC so he idealizes his culture he idealizes women and he sees that women fall short and so he sees the negative ideal in women idealizes his culture and now he idealizes definitely his absent father so Hamlet idealizes his conveniently absent father by the way it's really really easy to idealize a parent If the parents are never around do you see because because they never make any mistakes the parent that you're with every single day of their lives they make all the mistakes and they get all the the the brunt of the blame uh so Hamlet idealizes his conveniently absent father who is perfectly Noble whereas Claudius is perfect basist do you see the word perfect it's 100% one or the other it's a distort these are distorted projections of what Hamlet wants people to be he wants Hamlet to have no Humanity whatsoever which actually is true because Hamlet is a psychopath and a psychopath by definition has no Humanity so this is established very early in the play this sentiment and is then repeated several times in the play so here's what Hamlet says about his his father in one of his soliloquies he says so excellent a king that was to this hyperion to a Sater now Hyperion is the Sun God and the Sater is the half goat half man and the Sater was a good buddy of dionisis boxes bakas they hung around together so there's the there's the half there there's the animalistic side of us and there's the Godlike side of us he puts it he he says it directly he says Hyperion is the son God and so so excellent a king that was to this hyperion to a Sater Claudius is the Sater he's an animal so loving to my mother that he might not be team The Winds of heaven to visit her face too roughly oh my goodness yeah really really he that's see the exaggeration the exagger exaggerated speech and H the exaggerated way of thinking this black or white thinking my father was so loving he protected my mother from the winds DC uh so he says it again here later on quite deep into the pl do you see at different times he repeats this again Daddy is divine he see what a Grace was Seated on this brow Hyperion curls the front of J himself so there's the son God again the god of reason the god God of Arts the god of Science and J of course is Zeus and so that's the supreme god of all and he's Railing at his mother here and saying here's a picture of Claudius this Sater this creep this lowly creep that you've married now and here's what you left behind you left behind this the sun god so not a healthy way to divide up the world because people are complex in including you Mr Hamlet so he also idealizes if we need more proof so here's some more proof he also idealizes Horatio Hamlet idealizes this intellectual scholar Horatio he seems to admire Horatio's ability to balance the passions and reason here are the passions and here's reason and he sees in Horatio probably falsely because we don't hear much about Horatio's character at all and what we do here there's a few suggestions that yeah Horatio is a bit of a political mover as well and I've talked about that in other videos so he seems to admire Horatio's balance ability to balance the passions and reason the dionan energies the passions and the apollonian energies the reason something that Hamlet certainly cannot do and this is this lovely speech in act 3 scene 2 where he's talking to Horatio and he says Horatio thou art even as just as honorable that means honorable as honorable a man as ever my conversation coped with all and blessed are those whose blood passions and judgment reason are so well com kettled that they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger finger so you're not just blowing in the wind based on your passions you're not just driven by your passions to sound what stop she please give me that man that is not passion slave and I will wear him at in my heart's core I in my Heart of heart as I do thee do you see the exaggerated language here he he he puts all of his apples in one all of his eggs in the basket of Horatio you were the only creature on this planet Horatio who I deem worthy do you see not not not not healthy so Hamlet feels that he himself is too much inthrall to Passion which is absolutely the case but it's also ironic that it's not it's not his his excess of passion that makes the Revenge plot impossible uh it's his too much thinking his too much appolloni ins side so he Hamlet can't can't harmonize these two things again go look at my uh puritanism video I I explore that in more detail okay so all of that as we've talked about isolates him from everybody the hero by definition is tasked with healing A Wasteland society and this puts them at odds with society which resists change and resents the hero's Superior moral stance now that's really really true we actually hate the her hero cu the hero is doing things that we can't do ourselves and that alienates the hero by definition um you you were cut off once you go through the Looking Glass the hero is cut off from his old Society it's part of growing up actually it's part of the hero's Quest and I've talked about this in my other video go go click that link it's part of the it's part of growing up uh Hamlet does it too late it's supposed to happen when we're kids when we're adolescents at the age of 14 Alice goes through through the Looking Glass you know Dorothy is not in Kansas anymore this is supposed to happen in our in our our midadolescence I suppose is the proper age for it but as I said Hamlet's this has been delayed in Hamlet and it causes them all these problems we have to be isolated with the with the naive world that we've were gr grown up in thrown in into this new take the red pill or the blue pill or whatever pill it is we got to be thrown into this new realm outside of the Matrix to see the world as it really really is and this is what happens to Hamlet uh and it shocks him he's not prepared for this at all Polonius and osich represent the social Wasteland generally these guys are just these stuffed shirts they're not stuffed shirts they're empty suits do you see what I mean they're they're they're NPCs is that the language that we're using today there are these non-player characters these these empty faces that that greet the hero in this Wasteland uh but worse though it's the betrayals by his old friends Rosen Cranson Gilden Stern opilia Claudius and his mother they all betray him go watch my click on my my betrayal video here uh that more personally intensifies hammet's emotional isolation so it might be even worse uh than when Neo goes breaks through the Matrix or when dorotha because she still has the people that love her Alice still has people who love her that she knows love her it's just this new world where these new scary uh unknown creatures exist that you have to combat in the dark Forest of the hero's Quest but no it's worse for Hamlet DC because the people that he's that are supposed to have his back don't anymore and he can't trust anybody the hero Alone look at all your movies the hero alone sees the truth and this together with his high intelligence arrogance and unforgiving idealism isolates Hamlet completely from society absolutely and so here's here this is expressed in his uh in his first Soliloquy he says how weary stale flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world he's not in his childhood anymore he's not back in in Wittenberg studying his art studying his philosophy having you know great interesting debates with his friends he's not doing that anymore uh he's he he's now broken through the Matrix and he has to deal with the harsh realities of Life f on it a fi the world is an unweeded Garden that grows to seed things Rank and grow in n in nature possess it merely yeah duh yeah the world is that Wasteland the world is full of Cruelty the world is full of deceptions and these Psychopaths will grow up and deal with it uh but but he's as I said he's not prepared the hero sees the Wasteland for what it is uh now he's depressed here does the depression come first he lost his father weird things are happening with his mother and his uncle uh bad things are happened so maybe he was depressed first and then he he he got isolated in this sense or is it the fact that he's isolated helped cause the depression so there's a chicken and an egg question to ask there I don't think we have to go into it in too much detail so Through the Looking Glass nobody can be trusted all is unstable this is this the beautiful Cheshire Cat uh image a symbol a personification of of of the the unstability instability of of life in the dark Forest through the Looking Glass so a smiling damned villain lurks in the smiles of everyone wonderful wonderful stuff and so uh this is actually a common Motif in Shakespeare's plays it's it's it it is this cruelty of the real world this the the the the the the mellian heart of a lot of people to all degrees we all have a degree of it in us and some more than others of course and so here's Hamlet the naive callow youth no longer youth uh he says to be honest as this world goes is to be one man picked out of 10,000 so there's that cynicism and we see this in play after play after play after play on Shakespeare so I do I I believe H Shakespeare was quite a sensitive guy he was a mover and a Shaker in the world by the way he was a very good shrewd businessman so I'm not I'm not trying to paint him as a as a hamlet uh um but but he he was an honest guy I think Shakespeare and he saw the world and I think it pained him otherwise he wouldn't be able to put it down in such beautiful poetry uh so Hamlet again very in in this in the same scene he says uh use every man after his dessert and who shall Escape whipping so when when uh ponus says uh I will I will take care of the guests as they deserve and ham says no everybody deserves whipping so treat these guys better DC so there's that cynicism that Creeps in here uh the callow youth uh is intolerant of Humanity's uh uh cruelty uh Hamlet here again similarly he says uh but in the beaten way of friendship what makes you at Elenor why have you come to see me my friends if you are my friends you've come to see me because you love me the way I Want to Love You Rosen cran says oh we're just here because we love you my Lord no other occasion but Hamlet knows this do you see here's Rosen CR and Gilden Stern are the Cheshire Cat they're The Smiling villains uh and Hammer says beggar that I am I am even poorer in thanks but I thank you and be and sure dear friends my thanks are too dear a half penny I know the P the king paid you to come here I know that you are not what you seem to be I know you were unstable friends and I can't trust you and I my thanks is is not as rich as the king's thanks but anyway guy who sent for you is it not were you were you not sent for is it your own inclining is it uh is it a free visitation come deal just with me justly with me come come nay I speak I pray he's hurt I really do believe he's hurt he's hurt and he's angered by this and it's that that shock and realization that the world is not what it seemed to be and not what he insists that it should be uh quite sad actually that's that's quite sad and this one here we can be less forgiving of him he is arrogant and he's snobby and we don't have to for forgive him for this he's a snob and it's very very dislikable in him Hamlet is arrogant and terribly snobby and we do not like that about him and I don't think Shakespeare wants us to like that about him we can understand and forgive an intelligence intelligent person's frustration and impatience with the stupidity and dishonesty y of the court or an honest person's impatience with the hypocrisy of the Court DC but Hamlet crosses over into a-hole territory that's going to be my my claim here uh he he's so the question we can ask is that he mercilessly and hilariously mocks the Unworthy and and are they worthy of the mockery do they deserve it yeah I I think so a guy like ponus uh uh deserves to have the piss taken out of him DC uh but he he crosses the line into a territory as we're going to discuss today so here he is teasing ponus my honorable Lord I most humbly take leave my leave of you and Hamlet snaps back you cannot sir take from me anything that I more willingly part with all except my life except my life except my life farewell fare you well my Lord these tedious old fools he mutters as Polonius uh goes away so there there's a forgivable disdain here it's it's disguised but it's also undisguised it's very very obvious that he has disdain for this guy but it's disguised under the antic disposition DC that's how haml gets away with it for be he gets away with being rude because he's trying to make everyone think that he's crazy uh so yeah fair enough we cheer him on when he's mocking a guy like Polonius uh and even osri but when he mocks osri which I'm going to talk about it gets a little bit it it goes a little bit overboard we don't like this though I really don't like this about Hamlet he says he says in Act five towards the end when he's talking to Horatio he says by by the Lord Horatio these three years I have took note of it the is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he Galls his his KY now what he's talking about here is uh it's it's it's a Gravedigger scene where he's you know looking at the skull of York uh and and he's he's exchanging barbs banter with the gravedigger who is actually really really clever completely uneducated of course because he's a peasant but he's really really clever nonetheless uh uh and and Hamlet he it's kind of distasteful he says you know these days the the heel of the peasant is approach sorry the toe of the peasant is almost bumping into the heel of the noble they're walking so close meaning that the peasant should know their place and stay far behind the no nobility do you see so that's not quite likable uh in in hamlets it's like he he's thinking oh these these Upp peasants they should know their place D you see it's not so forgivable however I have to I have to say in that same scene Hamlet gives the the gravedigger his and says wow this guy's actually pretty clever we got to stay on our toes htio cuz this guy's pretty clever so yeah again Hamlet complex um and here however uh he gets he gets uh yeah he he he I this is really really distasteful only a-holes Revel in their own superiority over people who lack natural intellectual gifts Andor the luxury of time to pursue intellectual Pleasures now remember someone like the gravedigger they're they're working all the time they're working you know 100 hours a week they don't have time to to study philosophy and educate themselves on how to how to speak well uh and and so yeah only an a-hole would would would Revel in their superiority over those people and this is exactly what he does here he says when he's talking to the uh uh to to the to the players the players coming he's really really excited and he's heard them many many times and he says in an excited manic State he says I heard the speak me a speech once but it was never acted or if it was not above once the the brilliant speech that you acted was only spoken once because the play I remembered pleased not the million it was caviar to the general population it was like throwing this the beautiful elegant speech that you gave was like throwing Pearls Before Swine that wasn't worth the attention of the underlings DC of the uh of of of the Groundlings that's the perennial song of the culture vulture the people who think they're no they're they're Superior morally somehow Superior to people who don't appreciate the Finer Things in life like studying Hamlet on YouTube DC so absolutely necessary SL snobbery and and that kind of snobbery that culture vulture snobbery I think it reveals perhaps just a pure arrogance but but also in Hamlet's case for sure an insecurity I've seen it I've seen these culture vultures and the culture vultures that I've seen mostly are doing it out of they're pumping themselves up out of a narcissistic insecurity do you see uh yeah so here he is preaching to these guys and this this is brilliant this actor he's also in in Ian McKellen's Hamlet uh and he brilliantly portrays the frustrating tired uh uh actor who has to put up with this tedious young fool do you see he says over here these tedious old fools and this is exactly what he's thinking here these tedious young fools uh yeah really really interesting stuff brilliant storytelling so here's Hamlet instructing the actors on how to act and he's suggesting or not suggesting he's actually straight up saying and don't you just hate those Groundlings don't you don't you you're like me right we're we're brothers aren't we yeah we're we're we're Superior to everybody he says the same thing here ISM when he's telling him how to how to act H says oh it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig ped fellow tear a passion to T tatters to very Rags so he hates when actors overact in order to get the attention of the Groundlings who are unsophisticated audience again not necessarily because they're unworthy human beings but they're peasants and they're not educated because they're growing your potatoes for you Mr uh Noble so he hates when actors over back to please the Groundlings to split the ears of the Groundlings who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise which is kind of true a lot a large part of the population love you know very very very simple action movies or very very simple romantic comedies because they're not they don't they're working all week and they're tired at the end of the day and they just want to watch a stupid Netflix film because it's entertaining they don't have time to go off and do this stuff or and or they don't necessarily have the intellectual gifts that you have Mr lucky guy who is really really smart you see so it's it's sheer snobbery and it's unforgivable I think uh as I say as I say here it's probably true that yes these guys they're unsophisticated audience and all they want is very very simple puppet shows and action that's all they need to see bear baiting you know uh chicken what it rooster fighting that's that's a very very simple entertainment and a lot of people that's all that's all they've they've ever been had they've ever had time to culture to cultivate in themselves and so to to to pick on that and to think yourself Superior to that is sheer snobbery it's needlessly unkind so uh you can click my melanism link I I say a little bit more about that so related to that uh uh uh he is he's he's more than just a snob he's actually cruel and tyrannical Hamlet is viciously cruel to everyone in the play except for Horatio he's he's he's vicious to ofilia he's vicious to his mother Gertrude he's a vicious to the minor characters ostrich and uh and Rosa cring gillern too he who whom he has killed so he he's particularly cruel to ofilia but I want to argue here that there there's a bit of a caveat he's not really angry at opilia he's angry at his mother and I'm going to try to prove that here in fact though his unresolved edal issues and his anger over gert's transgressions are behind these attacks he's really attacking his mom through ofilia and what makes me think that is a beautiful poem by Ted Hughes about Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes was a brilliant poet one of my favorites and uh he was married to another brilliant poet one of my favorites Sylvia Plath and she had a lot a lot of different mental uh issues and and he was a tough guy too so so so so that that a really rocky relationship but Sylvia Plath wrote a beautiful poem called daddy vicious very difficult poem to read about her tyrannical father whom she never had she never was able to resolve her feelings about that uh and and she would viciously attack Ted Hughes uh and Ted Hughes wrote a beautiful poem about that situation and he said your real Target hid behind me your daddy the god with with a Smoking Gun for a long time vague as missed I do not know even uh I did not know I even I had even been hit or that you had gone clean through me to bury yourself at last in the heart of the god so there's a beautiful image beautiful image of a psychological process that happens when we have a problem with one of our parental F figures that's unresolved everybody in your life who who reminds you subconsciously of that parental figure that you resent and hate will be the Target and so the image here is of Sy PL is here Ted Hughes is here and and the ghost ghost here we are with Hamlet the ghost of Sylvia plath's daddy is behind Ted Hughes and she was shooting at Ted Hughes screaming at him doing whatever with Rocky go watch a biography uh the biographical movie and read some biographers very very interesting but she was really trying to attack her father very very interesting psychological phenomena and that's what that's what Hamlet's doing here when he's railing go watch that ham that that nunnery scene again Watch Hamet screaming at opilia he's not screaming at opilia opilia is merely a a a a bystander he's really screaming at his mother now what now that doesn't mean we can justify what he does but it explains what he's doing here so he he says here he is at the very beginning of that Nary scene uh he says I loved you once indeed my Lord you made me believe so and then he turns on her snaps at her very nastily you should not have believed me I loved you not and then it just escalates from there of course go watch the movie again I was the more deceived very very cruel and at the end of that towards the end of that he says get thee to an unary go go away from all men stay away from all men farewell or if thou Wilt needs marry marry a fool for wise men know well enough what holds you make of them now that's not an address at at at ofilia at all it's it's it's it's it's a reference to the fact that his mother was probably sleeping with Claudius while she was still married to her husband it's he's shooting very very clearly just like Sylvia Plath Hamlet is shooting at HIS mother through the image of of ofilia uh very very interesting stuff so go watch my edible complex video I talk a little bit more about that so after the Nene however a hamlet barely gives ofilia a second thought even at her funeral so so yeah sure fair enough we can forgive this perhaps DC perhaps I we can't forgive this at all uh uh he doesn't give a second thought that's it after the N scene opilia doesn't enter a hamet's mind at all so he he is very very cruel to opilia um and you can frame that I suppose as as a as a kind of misogyny so at when at at her at her funeral when he should say oh my goodness my love ofilia is dead and weep and weep and weep bitter tears for ofilia he doesn't he weeps for himself that he's not getting all the attention and ler is how yells he bursts from from hiding and he says dust Thou come here to whine to outface me leres with leaping in her grave so remember Le leres leaps in her grave and hugs his sister he's overwrought with with grief an exaggerated dramatic form of course but it's the it's the fear it's it's the sadness we would have uh uh at anybody's funeral but it's exaggerated for dramatic purposes and Hamlet bursts forth and he doesn't say oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh ailia no he says you're trying to outface me with leaping in her grave I'm the one I'm the one who was grieving more because I loved her um similarly Hamlet has to restrain himself from killing Gertrude he when he's ready to go now might I drink hot blood now I'm ready to go and and confront my mother and he he restrains himself and says no I can't think like Nero and murder his mother murder my mother I have to pull back so he manages to pull back but he is still vicious in that bedroom scene so there's the NY scene when he's vicious to ailia and here's the closet scene it's called the closet scene where he tears into his mother uh in a very very cruel needlessly cruel perhaps some of what he said or a lot of what he said was actually needed to be said because I I do believe she transgressed and I've got my video on that go watch that it's very interesting uh she did transgress but she doesn't quite deserve the fury that that he gives her uh oh I'm sorry this should this should say hamlet so Hamlet says soft now to my mother oh heart lose not thy nature never let the soul of the mother murdering Nero enter my firm bosom so he pulls himself back but in the closet scene he is vicious uh gertude recognizes that she says oh Hamlet thou hast thou Hast clefted my heart in Twain did she deserve it you have to decide oh throw away the worst a part of it and live the pure with the other half so that's a pretty cruel statement but again is it warranted perhaps she begs him and in this particular scene penny dalon is beautiful uh beautiful actor she does a great job of this and she approaches him says oh Hamlet please don't be so cruel to me have you forgot that I'm your mother and Hamlet snaps back viciously he says no by the cross not so I haven't forgotten you you are the queen your husband's brother's wife and would it were not so you are my mother I wish you weren't my mother now that's the absolute worst thing that a parent could say to a child and it's the worst thing that a child could say to a parent and Adolescent kids say that a lot actually so actually that that suggests something about his arrested adolescence as well so that's really really ouch so there's some proof that that he was really really cruel uh to to both gerud and and his mother warranted or not I don't know build your case build I think you could build a decent case for for both situations now the minor characters too come in for his viciousness and again as I mentioned before with ponus these are these are empty suits they're not real people and they may deserve the mockery but again I'm going to argue that he goes overboard and as we're watching it's like yeah get him get him oh yeah you know dude just back off a little bit there there's there's a bit of cringe that happens when he goes too far so like paloni osri is merciless mercilessly mocked derided and humiliated now maybe we can accept that we should take the piss out of people who deserve to have the piss taken out of them but I don't know do do do do these awful you know empty suits deserve to be humiliated that's maybe another question so here's what he says to osri uh uh when when osri first approaches and and Hamlet recognizes this face as an empty suit this this actor I don't know what his name is but go watch it he deserves an Academy Award for that portrayal of ostk it's absolutely brilliant he's an empty empty empty soul and he doesn't know how to behave when he's he's confronted with with someone who's who's who's pushing his buttons anyway it's brilliant so Hamlet says put on your hat put your hat to Its Right Use it's for your head so the guy's got his cap in hand like a servile servant and H says put your hat in your head and ostri says no no it's very hot I won't and Hamlet says no believe me it is very cold the wind is Northerly and ostri goes to put it uh goes to put it on he says it is in different cold my Lord and then Hamlet sees him putting on the hat and he says no yet me thinks it is very Sultry and hot for my complexion exceedingly my Lord it is very sultry so he goes to put his hat on and ham says no no no no it's actually kind of hot and so he takes it off he put it's cruel it's really really cruel and he does the same thing with uh with ponus in the very like a whale scene and with the ponia scene we kind of uh uh uh we cheer him on because it's actually kind of funny but this one here I I think it I think it goes a little bit overboard I might be wrong you you you figure it out it's it's interesting it's interesting anyway we're not quite sure now of course this this is also complex in one way but in one way it's not he kills These Guys these guys do these guys are fools they're fools they're they're puppets of the king they're caught in the head they're like deers in the headlights of the of the of the king they don't know how to behave do they deserve death for the Betrayal of their friend certainly not death but cruelest of all Hamlet has Rosen cranon gild andern killed at first he seems to Revel in the deed and callously shrugs off H Horatio's rebuke later he seems to regret the fact that he killed him and I've already talked about that uh before uh click on my my my Redemption video I talk about that in more detail but but this is interesting when he's talking to his mother in the closet scene when he's Railing at his mother towards the end of it he says I'm going to take care Rosen cranton Gilden Stern but let it work for is the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own patar I'll blow them to the moon so the the image here is of yeah you an engineer is the guy in Warfare who's dealing with the catapults and the bombs and stuff like that and he says yeah it's it's it'll be bitter it it'll be sweet sweet revenge and sweet sweet Justice to blow up the engineers with their own weapons DC so the image here of Rosen CR and Gilder being the engineers who are trying to blow up Hamlet but hamet's going to use their own weapons against them now that's that's pretty vicious so that indicates that he's pre he's planning all of this he's going to write this letter he's going to have the king of England uh do his dirty work for them and have his friends killed that's pretty vicious uh and and and Horatio calls him out horatian calls him out at at one particular uh uh towards the end of the play Horatio says yeah ooh so gild and surgeon Rosen CR go to it really are you going to do this and I've talked about this in other videos as well and he does it's very very subtle but he does call him out and Hamlet quite defensively he says why man they did make love to this employment they are not near my conscience I think that's that's a defense mechanism he he he is he is protesting too much I think he really does feel guilty because as I've mentioned already in this video uh uh on his dying breath he says I'm I'm not going to live long enough to hear what happened in England I do believe that that's not Glee of oh I wish I could hear what happened to Rosen CR and Gil linon in England haaha I don't think it's that I think it's I wonder I wonder on my dying breath I wonder what I did to my friends I think that's what it is such such good storytelling oh my goodness there's there's no one better than Shakespeare for this kind of psychological insight brilliant stuff okay so Hamlet passive aggressive Hamlet is passive aggressive in at least two ways one in the way that he uses humor and the other in the way that he kills people which doesn't sound passive aggressive but but it is bear with me so humor and sarcasm are often a cowardly passive aggressive insults are they always they're always passive aggressive this sarcasm and humor is is always passive not humor always passive sarcasm is always passive aggressive now whether or not it's cowardly is debatable but it allows the the sarcastic person an out when challenged about the insult the person can just say oh relax relax I'm just kidding you're so uptight you're so uptight do you see what it does it it's it it makes the The Vicious passive aggressive person uh uh able to throw the to to to throw the problem back onto the person who's justly offended to DC so Hamet attacks in the play are often via passive aggressive sarcasm or if not that then under the cover of antic disposition of his antic disposition of it pretending to be insane so he's protected he's shielded he's shielded by his humor I'm just being sarcastic I'm just being s sarcastic and at the same time he's shielded by his his uh his antic disposition I'm just I'm just insane I don't mean it I'm just insane now that's the way he talks to almost everybody all of that uh uh passive aggressive sarcasm and wit very very funny wit is under the cover of one of these two things except with Gertrude when he's yelling at Gertrude in her closet he actually tells her I'm not insane what I'm saying right now is straight up true uh with Claudius it's interesting uh his his the distancing that he puts between himself and Claudius with these defense mechanisms uh they're quite understandable because Claudius of course is the king and he has control of the uh more or less the control of the of the of the army and Hamlet has no proof that Claudius committed the murder and stole the crown so Hamlet is in a vulnerable position so he has to play play his play his cards carefully so uh in in the scene in the dumb show scene uh the play Within the play mouse trap scene um Hamlet uh uh mocks and teases and sarcastically plays with Claudius here uh basically saying in a passive aggressive ways that uh you you committed the crime that you're about to watch in this fiction but he does it in a way that that that Shields him from from the straightup accusation so he says to to Claudius he says the play is a Navy piece of work Claudius asks what's the name of this play and he says oh it's just a navish piece of work but what of that did you see that oh it's just a it's just a toy it's just fun do you see but in reality it's a passive aggressive uh accusation your majesty and we that have free Souls it touches us not we're not going to be affected by the crime that's being committed fictionally here because we never committed those CRI crimes did we wink wink so let the G Jade winch that our Withers are unrung so we are not going to be affected by this so it's a it's passive aggressive and it's it's under the guise of of a deniable antic accusation uh this insane accusation he can just deny it I was just crazy I'm sorry I've lost my mind okay so that's quite interesting go back you can you can go back and find many many inter instances in the play where he's he's the the wit in the sarcasm with Polonius and gildon R and CR okay so the killing is is a bit more complicated Hamlet does kill four people in this play but none of them directly this is my argument none of them directly in every case he is somehow protected or distance distance from those murders and or he is reacting rather than acting propelled by extreme events rather than by his own will now if it's not passive aggressive it's if it's sheer aggression sheer will that's one thing but when we react to something it's only partly our own will because we are being forced to do it by somebody else and that's a kind of uh a passive action is what my claim is so in terms of being protected and distanced he murders indirectly it's very very telling that when he kills Polonius is through the curtain and remember we talked in this video earlier about Lord of the Flies and how the boys the Civilized boys quote unquote are are on the island and they have to learn how to be brutal Savages and actually stick a a a sharpened stick into a live Pig and that blood threshold that Crossing of that threshold is too difficult for those boys at the beginning of the play well it's similar with with with Hamlet he can't I don't think Hamlet is the kind of guy who could look Claud look Claudius or Polonius in the eyes and stick something in them DC that's something that he can't cross he's not a warrior he's he's a scholar DC and so when he kills Polonius Shakespeare has him kill it behind a curtain behind this arus and that's not an accident Shakespeare does that on purpose to to illustrate what I just said so Gert said after he after he shoots or stabs uh uh ponus through the curtain he says oh Gert says oh me what hast thou done and he doesn't even know is it the king he doesn't not even quite sure if it's the king or not he react and and so there's the distance through the curtain through the arus and also the distance he doesn't even quite know what who's behind that and so he doesn't have to take responsibility for it Breaking Bad had a good example of that uh Lydia the character Lydia in Breaking Bad she's exactly that she wants evil to to be done in the world for her own benefit but she doesn't want to see it happen that's passive aggressiveness taken to its extreme similarly and more obviously I guess with when he kills Rosen Cranson Guildenstern he deflects the blame and he uses England to put distance between him and the violence England's going to do it just like England's going to do it not me he doesn't have to see the violence he doesn't have to stick the knife into anybody uh and he deflects blame and he says that it's not me that's to blame for this it's it's it's Rosen Cron ginster they asked for it so as we saw we already saw this quote so Gilder and Rosen CR go to it kind of rebukes Horatio and HMA says defensively why man they did make love to this employment they are not near my conscience their defeat does by their own insinuation grow they're the ones who brought this on themselves it's not my fault so again he needs that sense of distance now again we have to contrast a guy like this this passive aggression with a character like leres who doesn't really care I'm going to be 100% aggressive I'm not going to have any qualms I don't need any kind of distance just give me my father and give me Hamlet and I'm going to shoot him in the face that's exactly what he's going to do uh and of course Claudius which would which would have none of this uh none of this need for this uh this indirection so towards the end though he does ACT okay we have to say that he does ACT but I'm going to qualify this it's not straight up volition volition it's not a force of will that that that that makes Hamlet Act it's a force outside of him it's it's an act that happens outside of him that causes him to react so the difference between action and reaction is what we're going to talk about here he does kill lar sure enough but it's a spontaneous reaction to leres is decisive action leres comes up and he and and he he he deceptively wounds Hamlet have at you now that that's a cheap shot okay and then Hamlet without thinking nay come again here's where he's thinking here nay come again and then he wounds lities it's not premeditated it's not it's not an act of will so much as it is a reaction to something so it's not quite passive aggressive of course cuz he does ACT but it's not quite decisive it's not willed action either do you see so that's what I'm challenging I'm challenging the difference between action versus reaction and it's very clever that Shakespeare built all this into the play uh again here's where he's killing Claudius uh and and it again he is it's very final here he actually does stick him or he simply gives him the drink he forces him to do the drink but again there's some distance here well let's see so finally Hamlet does ACT but the ACT loses the force of pure volition that's what we're talking about here that's the argument it's not it it's not passive aggressive fair enough but it's not pure volition either because Hamlet has been pushed to act by his own imminent death doesn't want to do it doesn't want to do it doesn't want to do it doesn't want to do it oh I got I got 30 seconds now to do it I'll do it and then I'll die and I don't have to live with the consequences that's passive aggressive I don't know what to call that but it's something that's really really interesting uh because Hamlet has been pushed to act by his own imminent death and he doesn't have to stick around for the consequences gosh that's so interesting Shakespeare did this Shakespeare to boot he uses language to create a mental distance now this might be you might accuse me here of overthinking but again if we piece all these things together I I I I will argue that it's not overthinking he doesn't he doesn't like he blames England he gets England to kill Rosen CR and Gilden stern here at the end he gets the poison to do it and he actually says he uses a word here Ley says I can no more The King The King's to blame so now it's confirmed in Hamlet's mind and he's free to take action now but Hamlet doesn't simply take action he says the point in venom to then Venom do thy work then England do thy Work actually Claudius actually says when claudus is sending Hamlet away to be killed claudus is acting kind of passive aggressively there too right uh and but claudus say the same thing he says England do thy Work I can't remember the exact quote but it's that England do thy Work and then Hamlet says here Venom do thy work so there's a there's a distancing isn't that interesting there's a distancing uh it's pretty cool so is he is he a coward how much sensitivity makes it difficult to cross a blood threshold as we've talked about to commit the murder however Justified the murder is it's like the early Jack character the guy who grows into a tyrant uh who enjoys killing later on but he can't cross that blood threshold and again I talk about this more in thought versus action so so interesting so so interesting okay Hamlet is also cunning scheming and a bit of a mock of ellian himself so as we've seen the naive school boy Hamlet Begins the play by r in against the hypocrisy and inauthenticity of the court so I am Superior to all these people he says at the beginning here uh his mother says uh if if death if you agree that death is the natural way of of All fathers then why does it seem so particular to you my son and Hamlet snaps back he he he latches onto the word in a clever way he latches onto the word seems and says seems madam nay it is I know not seems I feel something and nobody else in this court feels any pain whatsoever I'm the the one there's an adolescent moral superiority about this uh again it's the beginning of the play It's the hero's journey where the where the the callow youth is supposed to get thrown into the dark Forest I've got lots of videos on this the hero's Quest video go watch it it's really really cool uh the the the callow youth gets thrown into the dark forest and learns the nasty ways of the world learns how to be nasty themselves so that they can get rid of the psychopathic pathological nastiness in the world and not just the everyday variety of it and that's exactly what happens right here after encountering the brutal reality ities of life outside University bad people exist sir Hamlet becomes a quick study in the mavian art of deception and manipulation in fact the whole play revolves around this for the rest of the for the for the duration so Hamlet says here after he's seen the ghost and he comes up with his plan to pretend to be crazy he he says to Horatio and the others he says don't reveal my Ploy I've got a plot but don't reveal it okay as per as I per chance Hereafter shall think it suitable that means suitable or appropriate I will think it suitable to put an a put an antic disposition on so I'm going to pretend to be crazy but please don't reveal my Ploy and so here basically he says seems htio I now I know now seems whereas earlier he said I know not seems so he is starting to become the ma Vel which everybody has to be we have to have part Beast go back and watch the beginning of this video where I talk about the hero and Harry Potter we have to be part beast in order to in in order to take care of the other beasts that the worst beasts that exists in the world you can also watch my appearance versus reality reality video so with the establishment of his antic disposition as we' have seen and we've already talked about the mous Trap navish piece of work that's another part that's another deception that plays the thing we're I catch the conscience of the king so there you go two deceptions he is now the Machel in training the whole plot now revolves around the Battle of cunning scheming mavels the newly makavelian Hamlet and the uh and and and the the straightup pathological psych psychopath uh Claudius so here it is here so I'll have grounds more relative than this that plays the thing where where wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king so the scheming is announced in Grand fashion so I point this out because yeah he is he's not all strictly what he wants to be at the beginning he does become this kind of scheming cunning guy uh in parallel to his Nemesis which very often happens in films and stories right we have a we have the hero we have Batman and Joker and they very they share a lot of characteristics okay so this is a big one of course we all know that Hamlet has a serious mental problem s uh and and the most obvious is his manic depressive State much of what we love about Shakespeare's works is the sadness is the is the sad existential statements of of of the human condition for everyone we all we all understand Hamlet's pain at the pain of existence it's really really true um um and and we don't you don't have to be clinically depressed to understand what he's suffering but several of Hamlet soliloquies and speeches are beautiful tragic cries of despair specifically from a clinically depressed person he is if he were alive today I I'm convinced he would be diagnosed as clinically depressed which raises the question how did Shakespeare understand that kind of thinking uh so well if he wasn't depressed himself we have no idea as far as I could tell we we have no idea what his personal life was like we we don't have much about his biography so Hamlet also suffers extreme mood swing so it's not just the depression it's also the Mania so he's manic depressive which is uh called bipolar disorder today I think manic depressive is a cooler word though because it it gets both of them Mania means this highly excitable uh uh State he's highly excitable and easily made despondent so let's talk about where this comes from uh these State this manic depressive state is caused or exacerbated by or maybe a symptom of these things this is what I could come up with genetics sure he must we we are born with a with a disposition in one way or the other more resilient less resilient we are born like this did did he inherit straight up bipolar disorder we we have no idea of course uh his high intelligence and overthinking uh is not necessarily A Cause but it might exacerbate uh uh uh his his his manic depressive State because the mind can can can can work over time uh simply personality we can be born naturally sensitive now just because you're born naturally sensitive doesn't mean you're going to be a manic depressive or you're going to have depressive episodes at all not at all but it it could exacerbate the problem his introspection caus him to think too much his idealism certainly causes him that schizophrenic almost crack up DC because he can't handle the the the high and the low the noble and the base in Us in him uh his rigid black or white thinking is not healthy at all that's certainly pathological that's called splitting and that's a real problem uh he's got personal we're going to talk about this I got a separate section in this video about his narcissism histrionic personality disorder and his borderline personality disorder which I think we can find evidence for uh unresolved edop polished tension definitely we've already looked at we've s we've looked at that a little bit but all of these things by the way I talk about more detail in my theme playlist so go have a look at that I do have a whole video on the edible complex it's quite interesting his alienation uh isolation I talk about that in my existentialism video go look at that but that's certainly is it a cause of his depression or a symptom of his depression or does it merely exacerbate his his his depression uh I love this one as well my existential video talks about existential thrownness he's thrown into impossible circumstances as much as we want to perhaps hate Hamlet which a lot of people do you got to sympathize with him because you don't know what it's like to be thrown down into these circumstances that you have no control over and you know are not good and of course feelings of powerlessness uh they can result from depression or they can be a cause of depression as well and this is why I'm not quite sure what and how to categorize all of these things but go back just just on your own go back with these Notions in mind go back and have a look at uh at the play and you'll you'll see you'll see a lot of it but we're going to break down we're going to provide some evidence for these claims now Hamlet's Suicidal Thoughts of course are are one of the things the play is is most famous for in his very first Soliloquy he clearly announces that he he is in a suicidal State he says oh that this to two solid flesh would melt thaw and resolve itself into a do how weary stale flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world now that sense of the uselessness of the world is repeated several times through the play uh and that certainly is is a is one of the definitions of of the depressed mind they cannot see even though they see Beauty in the world they cannot see it as being beautiful really uh so so yeah um the the passivity of this he doesn't want to do anything he just wants to melt resolve just means to disappear to dissolve he just wants to melt away he doesn't have to do anything just wants to disappear DC uh it's it's it's very very sad it suggests that powerlessness that we talked about uh above I've got a link to my Soliloquy number one uh walk through I walk through every line in this in these videos so go have a look at that um he repeats the thing that this is repeated throughout the entire play and he repeats it again when he's talking to Rosen CR and Gilden Stern and his definition his his speech here is basically a textbook definition of the clinically depressed mind he says I have of late but where but why I know not I have lost all my S all my happiness I've lost all my mirth forgot all custom of exercise now that's that's in the textbook that's in the textbook literally what depression clinical depression means you just you lose all interest in your interests and and indeed it goes so heavily with me that that with my disposition that this goodly Frame of the earth seems to me a sterile prator look at that lifeless a sterile piece of land this most excellent canopy the air this is this is the scene where he's saying it in the 2009 version uh they have these lights up there that represent of course the canopy the stars look you this Brave overhanging overhanging firmament this majestical roof Fred with golden fire why it appear no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent Congregation of vapors that again is a definition of the clinically depressed mind which again suggests to me that maybe Shakespeare at some point in his life experienced that depression the depressed mind sees but cannot fully cannot feel beauty or Joy or anything good and this is this is what this symbolizes so certainly certainly certainly depressed without a doubt everybody knew that before you even watched the play I suppose now let's talk about the IIA helmet manic intensely excited states are frequent it can be positively uh Manic and and happy State when he's greeting the uh uh the players or it could be manic in a negative state which means it's agitated uh but but but in a kind of fierce pathological way well all Mania is pathological it's just an over over over an overly jacked nervous system so first after hanlet speaks with his father's ghost this is when we first see it of course and he comes back and but it's to be expected Ed right so it's not necessarily pathological if you saw a ghost you'd become you'd be pretty excited as well but again you put all these things together these minor examples together that alone could be taken as over reading but you put them all together and you and you get a you get a picture so uh he comes back and he's wild and Horatio says dude dude dude these are but wild and whirling words my Lord Slow Down slow down calm down and hamla says I'm sorry if they offend you heartly yes faith heartily and that repetition I've mentioned in this video already this repetition of these words suggests a rasing mind erasing thoughts TC and Horatio says no there's no offense my Lord yes by St Patrick there is Horatio and then he goes on he rattles on so that's the first time we see that kind of manic uh attitude in Hamlet because the very first time we saw him he was kind of gloomy and sad and you know uh um um and and depressive and here we see the Mania now we see it again in this scene here and I love this shot this screenshot of David Tenant he gets the the mania this this mocking uh sarcastic Mania but he also gets the pain in the eyes he's not enjoying this he's laughing but there's no happiness in those in those eyes it's fantastic acting and so he's he's he's it's the dumb show scene it's the mouse trap scene and he's lying in oia's lap and he he banters with her in a really cruel sarcastic way basically calling her a again do you see like he did before and so he ofilia picks up on his baning with other people and she says you are as good as a chorus my Lord which means you're you're you're interpreting the play for everybody you're as good as a chorus and Hammer says I could be a course between you and your lover you I could tell the story of you and your lover you if I could see the puppet's dallying now there's obviously some kind of sexual innuendo going on here it's it's cruel and she says you are sharp you are Keen my Lord you are Keen you are sharp and and and and sharp edged and he said it would cost you a groaning so you'd have to get pregnant in order for you to take the edge off of my keenness DC so he's it's the banter cruel sarcastic banter he's hiding again behind the sarcasm he's hiding behind the antic disposition he called her a but he has plausible he has he has plausible deniability oh I'm just insane oh it's just a joke can't you take a joke and she kind of says back yeah you're still better and worse so you're cleverer and cleverer but you're crer and crer at the same time so that kind of stuff goes on throughout the whole play the whole play is basically this which is one reason why we love the play because it's entertaining it's Shakespeare's fireworks of uh of uh of language but but it's also very quite it's also revealing so the Mania of courses is this increased talkativeness rapid speech racing thoughts distractability which is Hamlet increased uh increase in goal directed activity yes he is he is moving towards in His Manic states he saying now might I drink hot blood he's ready to move he's ready to move and psychomotor a agitation and again if you watch a good video of it uh there's the depressed states where he's barely moving like here or here and these agitated manic states where he's jumping all around the stage and dancing do you see so that's it it is it's clinical Mania do you see manic depressive disorder uh Hamlet Mania is evident in his bitter sarcastic exchange with Rosen cran Giller ponus opilia gertude and Claudius especially during the mous Trap scene yes Keen better and better unremitting wit it just doesn't stop it doesn't stop in His Manic States okay so connected to the depression of course is are his personality disorders and we're going to talk about narcissism borderline and histrionic personality disorders in this video we have already seen a lot of these aspects of narcissism borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder we've already seen them so I'm going to quickly walk through them here but then I'll Supply you with a few more quotes uh just to to cap it off uh but go back as you'll see this go back and watch the previous you know what I've said in this video it's it's it's all it's all there so he narcissism you've got a high sense of self-importance and and requires admiration he's got to be the center of attention all the time of course and we've already seen his snobbery and arrogance and the sense of self-importance he believes is superior to others especially his underlings and people who are lesser than him he's critical of and looks down on people we've already looked at he has no concern for the needs and feelings of others that's especially evident with his treatment of ofilia he's envious of others he's EnV envious of Claudius who has usurped his place in his mother's bed go watch my edal complex video uh and of course who has usurped his crown uh and he's envious of leres as well uh viciously uh uh envious of leres he can't stand the fact that leres is admired by anybody uh he reacts with Rage or contempts contempt and and he tries to belit belittle other people and make them make him to make himself feel Superior so we've talked about that as well difficulty manage emotions and behavior we just talked about his manic depressive States depressed and Moody because of their imper because of his own imperfections his self-hate his self-hate we're going to talk my last point in this video is his self-hate and his own imperfections as we've seen he's an idealist he expects everyone to be perfect black or white thinking so because of his own imperfections he is this Moody and depressed person that's another symptom of narcissism I got this from the Mayo Clinic by the way uh you can click there secret feelings of insecurity shame and humiliation absolutely we've already looked at that he's not the hero that he's supposed to be and he's ashamed of it and that's where all of this comes from so borderline personality disorder this comes from the National Institute of Health uh a distorted and unstable self uh self-image and sense of self absolutely unstable what is he is he a scholar is he a warrior he doesn't quite know he's bouncing all over the place so recurring thoughts of suicidal behaviors we see that in the Soliloquy so you can watch all my Soliloquy videos there uh intense highly variable moods we've just talked about the mood swings chronic feelings of emptiness again those are the soliloquies uh uh he doesn't see anything good in the world we've just looked at that he doesn't see anything good in the world inappropriate intense anger and problems controlling that anger yes fair enough be angry with your mom she did transgress several social norms she should be talked to but control yourself man opilia too did betray you she's spying on you for her father she did betray you so yes talk to her but good grief control your anger historyonics a cool one it basically means you're a drama queen uh he he's uncomfortable unless he's the center of attention and we see that already we've seen that with the with the grave scene where he has to where leres he has to you know he has to show everyone that he's the one that uh that that that is grieving more than leres without a thought to ailia uh he shifts emotions rapidly we just talked about and he acts very dramatically that's that's what histrionic personality disorder is all about he's got he's a drama queen as though performing before an audience with exaggerated emotions and expressions that's the way he acts all the time DC except for when he's in his quieter moods uh okay so let's so go back and watch uh the rest the the what I've said previously in this video and you'll see lots of examples about that but here's a here's a few more quotes So Many of the 14 points discussed here uh point to one or more of these disorders as I've said uh there's more here's more evidence if you need it indeed so after watching The Players the players come and they recite this this this in a very impassioned speech uh Hamlet is very impressed by it and after that he has his own Soliloquy Soliloquy number three and he and and and he draws attention to himself he says who calls me villain if this actor can out of nowhere create all of these emotions then I must be uh I must be a coward and I I must not be able to act because I have more motive more real motives to act than the actor to see who was faking it who calls me villain breaks my pain across breaks my forehead across who slaps me on the forehead plucks off my beard and blows it in my face which was the Supreme insult back in those days who tweaks me by the nose and gives me the lie in the throat as deep as his lungs who lies to me from from their lungs deeper than the throat who does this to me uh dude no one no one you're alone no one's watching you no one's watching you but the narcissist doesn't understand that no one's watching him they're they he's he's excitable borderline he's histrionic he sees himself as everybody watching him he sees himself as the main character and of course he he sees himself as a as he sees himself as someone who everyone thinks about all the time if you think about this yourself audience because we all have a bit of narcissism in us and we very often think of ourselves as you know we're going through our daily lives even alone we're imagining other people see us uh that's that's narcissism and narcissism can be you know it can be acceptable levels of it and it can be pathological and in Ham's case it's pathological so here he is again uh a very very Sim similar situation towards the end of the play he says what is he whose grief Bears such an emphasis this is when he's jumping into the grave to take to steal the attention from leres who is overwhelmed with grief he says who who is he whose grief bear such an emphasis whose whose phrase of Sorrow conjures the wandering stars and makes them stand like wander wander wounded hearers this is I Hamlet the Dane Who Dares upstage me absolute drama queen even the language he uses here he's accusing leres of using this flowery dramatic language to get everyone's attention and leres did nothing of the sort he just had an outburst of crazy pathological grief and he jumps into aia's grave but Hamlet imagines him him him being overly dramatized but it's actually him that is that is the that is the drama queen DC now most telling of all and I find this very very interesting uh when Hamlet is dying he's literally aware of himself uh or imagining himself as the leading man in a play in a drama and Hamlet conflates the two reality and drama here um Hammet says you audience members gathered around me here you that are looked pale and trembl at this Misfortune and he assumes that everybody's sad for him whereas somebody like you know osri is just looking at this guy I hated this jerk anyway do you see what I mean so but he's assuming that everybody's feeling for him you that are but mutes or audience members now a mute is the characters on stage that don't say anything there the main character who's speaking and then there's all these guys that are just fleshing out the scene DC you're all a bunch of mutes he sees the whole world as either mutes giving Grandeur to his Spotlight or as audience members coming to wonder at the glory of this guy's life do you see oh you that are mutes uh to or audience to this act had I but time oh I could tell you but let it be Horatio I am dead so he literally sees himself as a leading man now I'm mocking him here mercilessly but it's a beautiful ending and I've said in my other videos that the way it ends Shakespeare deliberately creates great sympathy for him and we follow that sympathy sympy we agree with that sympathy he does he's a tortured tortured fundamentally good guy but incredibly complex but a lot of his struggles are our struggles as well so I'm mocking him here but and and and he's worthy of it because he is he's he is a drama queen he does suffer from that that's histrionic that's mostly histrionic he's got to see himself literally as as as someone who was on stage okay now all of these 13 points that we've talked about so far are all leading up to his all contribute to his self-hate Hamlet's frustration and anger with himself are caused by a combination of all the problems we've just been talking about but I'd like to draw attention to to two in particular that you could use to make a really really good argument on why he hates himself it's his splitting it's that black or white thinking that that all or nothing thinking that that alienates him from everybody else and worse it alienates him from himself as we've talked about he's got a high he's got a low like you like me and we've got to harmonize those two and accept the good and the bad or not even good or bad they're just different polar uh uh aspects of our of our being but he can't accept his own complexity he can't reconcile that messy dionan Earthly bodly self with his nobler apollonian spiritual intellectual aspirations and again watch that puritanism video I go into more detail with it but here's a good quote for it he he he says to in this particular scene here here's the here's an image of the self disgust and Loathing he says don't come near me I as bad as everybody else I'm as I'm calling all women but I'm probably worse than that I am myself indifferent honest but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me now if that's not self-hate I don't know what is I very proud vengeful ambitious with more offenses at my backck than I have thoughts to put them in what should such fellows as I do crawling Between Heaven and Earth we are arrant naves all so yeah so there's there's there's self-hate for you so that's one thing that that that that intolerance of his own complexity that rips him apart uh also uh and just as is obvious it's his lack of heroic qualities his overthinking and inability to act making him make him an unheroic hero compared to his heroic age father he's soft and modern and again go watch my revenge videos uh I talk about the difference between the modern Christian era person and the ancient heroic era person they're very very different people and he's called upon to be that old school hero and he's not he's a new school hero and and and that that rips him apart too so here he says it here here's the self-hate in one of his soliloquies oh Soliloquy number three you can click it here oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I a dull and muddy medled Rascal Peak like a I I I sit here and whine and complain like a jna dreams un ready of my cause am I a coward that's that's what a man would feel that that's what a man would feel when he can't do the heroic act that he's called upon the viciously murdering heroic act that he's called upon to do um I'm reluctant to call him a coward because I I i' I'd rather be I don't know I'd rather be called a coward than not have the brutality in me to plunge a knife into somebody I I I really don't know it's very very complex but if you're a warrior for example and you're defending somebody or a police officer you have to be ready to do that kind of stuff so so complex anyway so I am am I a coward for it cannot be that I am pigeon delivered and I lack the anger in me the righteous anger the correct anger in me to make the offense bitter enough for me to take action so I'm not I don't have that within me I must be a coward so he's like a pacifist I suppose in Wartime and everyone's getting conscripted but somebody who really really really believes or or has that character that sensitivity of character that is not cowardly it's something else but in a certain context it gets called cowardly DC it's very very complex and so is Hamlet anyway self-disgust for sure if you want to break it down into a simple argument you can talk about his his black or white thinking that causes him to hate himself and that the lack of heroic qualities all right that was five quotes Shakespeare Hamlet character analysis Hamlet I hope you found these videos useful and I hope you come back for the Claudius video uh that should be interesting as well uh but if you did like these videos please like And subscribe and uh don't forget to pick up a copy of the PDFs if you need them thanks for watching