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The Subject of ‘the Symbolic’, Hamlet: Centering on the Interrelation between the Other and the Unconscious and Desire

  • 인문논총
  • 2023, 62(), pp.253-286
  • DOI : 10.33638/JHS.62.11
  • Publisher : Institute for Human studies, Kyungnam University
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : August 30, 2023
  • Accepted : October 8, 2023
  • Published : October 31, 2023

SOON-HYANG HWANG 1

1경남대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study examines Hamlet’s subjectivity from a very different viewpoint compared to the Freud and Lacan’s perspectives on Hamlet’s desire by applying the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Lacan to Hamlet’s subjectivity from the perspective of rigorous analysis based on various criteria of their theories. Freud insists that Hamlet has incestuous Oedipal desire for his mother, and because of that reason, Hamlet delays his revenge for his father ghost. And Lacan argues that Hamlet remains in ‘the Imaginary’ stage forming the narcissistic identification with his mother’s desire, and his mother’s desire dominates Hamlet’s own desire and makes him delay his revenge. But this study argues that Hamlet is a subject whose Unconscious and desire is completely determined by ‘the Symbolic’ order in close relation to the desire of ‘the Other’ by intensively analyzing the dynamics between the society and the characters in Hamlet. And so this study reveals that the Christian ideology as ‘the Other’, in the society of Denmark where Hamlet lives, suppresses and bans Hamlet’s impulse, and Hamlet follows the desire of ‘the Other’ in the Symbolic order functioning as a strict superego, that is to say, the law of a society. Through this paper’s approach to Hamlet’s subjectivity, it is verified that Hamlet is a subject of ‘the Symbolic’ showing that his Unconscious and desire are completely governed by the desire of ‘the Other’, the Christian ideology which also hinders him from fulfilling his revenge for his father ghost.

Citation status

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