『햄릿』과 정신분석: 프로이트, 랑크, 존스

Abstract

This essay aims at a close examination of the psychoanalytic interpretations of Hamlet, initiated by Sigmund Freud and developed by Otto Rank and Ernest Jones. Psychoanalysis is often indicted of monotonously reducing literary works within a narrow psychoanalytic model, omitting those elements which do not fit the model, and thus distorting the literature. The charge of monotonous reductionism, however, can equally be brought against the critical tendency that lumps all psychoanalytic readings into one category and thereby elides the differences and permutations within them. The history of psychoanalytic criticism of Hamlet from Freud through Rank to Jones shows important changes and developments that ultimately anticipates Jacques Lacan’s innovative reading. Freud ascribes Hamlet’s hesitation over his revenge to his unconscious self-reproach that he is fundamentally not different from Claudius who fulfilled his infantile Oedipal wish to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Freud also sees the Danish prince as a hysteric who expresses repulsion for sexuality in his relationship with Ophelia. Freud later mentions Hamlet as a typical melancholic who severely debases himself after the loss of a love object. Freud’s account of melancholy yields an interpretation that after losing his mother as a love object, Hamlet identifies with her and incorporates her into his ego, mounts a harsh attack upon her, and then finally commits suicidal self-destruction. Highlighting Hamlet’s incestuous impulse, Otto Rank zeroes in on the sexual aspects of his Oedipus complex. A mother figure, like a father figure, is divided into a sensual fornicator (Gertrude) and a chaste virgin (Ophelia), and this division demonstrates the conflict between Hamlet’s incestuous desire and his defense against it. What distinguishes Shakespeare’s tragedy from earlier myths and legends is the introduction of the theme of incest and sexuality. Hamlet’s death, which occurs only after Gertrude’s death, is also explained as caused by his wish to be united with her in death. Assessing Shakespeare as the first modern man who delved into inner conflicts instead of external struggles, Ernest Jones further elaborates on the themes of parricide and incest. Hamlet unconsciously sees his other self in his murderous and incestuous uncle and thus is able to kill the villain only by killing himself. Reconstructing hypothetically Hamlet’s infantile years, Jones sees little Hamlet, excessively loved by his mother and then disappointed by his mother’s sexual betrayal, grow into a misogynist who displaces his repugnance against his mother onto Ophelia. Jones’s study culminates in his argument that frustrated by his mother’s betrayal and defending against his incestuous desire, he harbors a matricidal impulse against his mother and this impulse may be a solution to his Oedipus complex. Rank’s and Jones’s studies develop three important points from Freud’s original view. First, focusing on the theme of incest and sexuality, they shift the critical attention from father to mother. Secondly, they attempt to explain the completion of Hamlet’s revenge and his consequent death in addition to his hesitation. Finally, in so doing, they shed light on the dissolution of his Oedipus complex as well as Oedipal feelings. These are the points critically developed later by another successor of Freud, Jacques Lacan.