Family Dysfunction in "Hamlet"

Family Dysfunction in Hamlet

As I read to the end of Act IV of Hamlet (and maybe kept reading a bit farther, shh!), I found myself growing more and more wary of the way relations between family members are portrayed. No matter which character I look at, there seems to be some disturbing aspect of his or her familial relationships.

The first (and strangely least disturbing) of the relationships we learn about over the course of the play is the relationship between father and son. So far three sons have seen their fathers killed: Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Laertes. Each of the sons is out for revenge on his father’s killer. However, I’ll focus on Hamlet here because his relationships with his father figures are the most striking. Hamlet’s desire for revenge against his father’s murderer is particularly disturbing because it means he’s after the blood of his own uncle, Claudius. This is made even worse when you keep in mind Claudius’s words to Hamlet in Act I: “We pray you throw to earth/This unprevailing woe, and think of us/As of a father” (1.2.106-8). After killing Hamlet’s father, Claudius essentially asks Hamlet to think of him as a father instead. Adding that to the discussion we had in class about Claudius possibly being Hamlet’s biological father, the relationship between them is thoroughly perverse.

Turning toward the female side of the families, things get a bit more complicated and possibly even more sinister. There don’t seem to be as many murder plots abounding in regards to the women of the play, but there’s quite a bit of questionable sexuality. Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, has apparently committed incest by marrying her dead husband’s brother. Hamlet explains that “even she . . . Married with mine uncle,/My father’s brother, but no more like my father/Than I to Hercules/within a month . . . O most wicked speed, to post/ With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” (1.2.149-57). Even if Gertrude and Claudius aren’t related by blood, it seems that there is a reason the brother of your spouse is called a brother-in-law. But that’s not quite as creepy as Hamlet’s apparent Oedipus complex in regard to his mother Gertrude. Hamlet seems unduly preoccupied with his mother’s sex life, and while the point we made in class about his being worried about possible competition for the throne make sense, I still get the feeling that Hamlet’s main concerns aren’t really about political gain. Just look at Hamlet’s confrontation with Gertrude in her bedroom.

Lastly, I think that Ophelia’s relationships with her family are also suspicious. She is very dependent on the male members of her family, and something about that strikes me as odd. Again, it probably wasn’t that unusual for women to rely on the men in their family during this time period, but it seems like more than that. Ophelia falls into a sort of babbling, delusional state when her father Polonius is killed, and when Claudius mentions that Ophelia is brooding about her father’s death in Act IV, Ophelia suddenly breaks into a song about “I a maid at your window/To be your Valentine” (4.5.49-50). I’m not sure what to make of this, and I’m also uncertain about Ophelia’s relationship with her brother Laertes. Laertes only weeps for her death in Act IV, which is all we were supposed to read, but in Act V he jumps in Ophelia’s grave and holds her dead body, asking that the gravediggers “Hold off the earth a while,/Till I have caught her once more in mine arms” (5.1.233-34). I don’t know how close the bonds between siblings are supposed to be, but this seems excessive.

Then again, all the familial relationships in the play seem strange to me. Anyone else have any thoughts on this, or was it just my imagination?