ABSTRACT
When the Prince meets Fortinbras's army, he's amazed they'd squander so much blood and gold for so little. He has another soliloquy on the divine plan, now questioning honor. Hamlet is a hybrid of ancient and modern tragedy. The Ghost is classical and Christian, Greek and Roman. Hamlet's brothers—Horatio, Fortinbras, Laertes, and the gravedigger—are the men Hamlet identifies with. They're exempt from his genital cruelty, disdainful neutering, and fascination with the royal bed. In developing a male identity, Hamlet's idealization of his father must be a defense against aggression, evidence for Freud's Oedipus complex. Adelman and Kahn discuss the graphic rape imagery runs through Shakespeare's prelude to battle. Freud's theories on law, culture, and religion are in Totem and Taboo and Civilization and Its Discontents. Individual control is exerted by the superego directing the ego after consultation with the “ego ideal.” Guilt is “fear of the super-ego.” In “A Child Is Being Beaten” Freud described the sadomasochistic fantasies of school children. When we meet him, Hamlet wishes his flesh would melt. Is the murder of his mates an echo of his wish to die, perchance to dream, suicide by proxy?
