Essay On Drowning In Hamlet

One of the most common events depression is compared to is drowning. The similarity lies in the emotional and mental factors in depression. In Hamlet, Hamlet experiences many symptoms of depression after the loss of his father. He is an appropriate example of how depression can be compared to drowning as seen through his actions and thoughts. Depression can be described as having an uncomfortable mindset. Things always seem gloomy or like there’s no hope for the future. Life feels irritating and isolating. When someone is depressed “nothing seems comforting, pleasurable, or worth living for”. “What was beautiful may look ugly, flat, or even sinister” (Lubow,2013). This relates to Hamlet perfectly, especially when he says “the air- look you,
No nor woman neither” (Hamlet.2.2.291-304). He is expressing that he does not find happiness in the world anymore. Inside Hamlet knows he is filled with sadness and anger. He feels as though he has nothing to live for. The world holds nothing except unpleasant people and unamusing activities. This is shown when he debates on committing suicide or not but he fears afterlife is worst than his living life. This relates to the process of drowning. Drowning is “a process resulting in primary respiratory impairment from submersion in a liquid medium. Implicit in this definition is that a liquid- air interface is present at the entrance to the victim’s airway from breathing oxygen” (Cantwell,2016). If oxygen is substituted with happiness and the water is replaced with depression, then that is Hamlet’s positon. He can not reach happiness with his dispiriting state of affairs blocking him from the process of recovering. He is not experiencing happiness in the world because his mind is suffocating with dark thoughts and gloom that linger from his father’s murder. There no way to change the past and he must live with the grief but as time