Hamlet-Identity Crisis

Shakespeare's Hamlet is arguably one of the best plays known to English literature. It presents the protagonist, Hamlet, and his increasingly complex path through self discovery. His character is of an abnormally complex nature, the likes of which not often found in plays, and many different theses have been put forward about Hamlet's dynamic disposition. One such thesis is that Hamlet is a young man with an identity crisis living in a world of conflicting values.

An identity crisis can be defined as 'a psychosocial state or condition of disorientation and role confusion occurring especially in adolescents as a result of conflicting internal and external experiences, pressures, and expectations and often producing acute anxiety.' (www.dictionary.com) It was apparent that Hamlet did indeed have an identity crisis because of his conflicting internal and external experiences and the pressures and expectations from those in the Royal Court of Denmark. He endures conflicting internal and external experiences such as the ghost of his father requesting him to exact revenge on Claudius and in doing so contradict all of the morals he has formed. Pressures to accept the dubious marriage of his mother to his uncle, pressure to accept Claudius as the new king and expectations from the court to be emotionally strong in spite of his father's demise and from the ghost of his father to avenge his death by killing Claudius all challenge Hamlet's strength of self. His anxiety is caused as a result of these external pressures.

Hamlet lives in a country of different worlds. At the time, Denmark was in a state of transition between three metaphysical worlds; the heroic world, where a man's honour was foremost, killing was not accepted but expected, might was power, the Machiavellian world, an amoral world where politics and mind games were employed ruthlessly, the ends justified the means, and the Christian world of love and forgiveness. Hamlet was a Christian living in a dying