In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” many of the characters struggle with mental health issues including the title character Hamlet. Throughout the play Hamlet is seen as mad and insane by those around him being ostracized and pushed away more and more as the play goes on. Shakespeare is considered one of if not the greatest storyteller to ever live and one of the reasons for this is how well his stories hold up to the test of time. While reading through Hamlet I noticed that Shakespeare’s portrayal of mental illness through the character Hamlet was executed great and even holds up to today’s standards.
The first we see of Hamlet’s mental illness is very early on in the play Act 1, Scene 2. “O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ’gainst ⟨self-slaughter!⟩ O God, God” (A.1 S.2 133-136 Shakespeare) This is spoken by Hamlet upon being left to himself following an assembly Hamlet’s father has very recently died and his own uncle has married his mother and has become king. Obviously, these events have greatly upset Hamlet and have manifested a sort of depression into him. At this point Hamlet’s depression has dug itself so deep he’s become suicidal, wishing his flesh would melt into a dew and forsaking God wishing that it wasn’t against his religion to kill himself. It’s important to note that in this scene Hamlet is completely alone as later on in the play he feigns insanity but, in this moment where he expresses these thoughts he is by himself expressing his true emotions and how he feels about himself and the world around him and it’s not hard to make a connection between those thoughts and way of thinking and depression.
Even in today’s society mental illnesses like depression carry a stigma around them. These stigmas have only gotten better and less harmful with time meaning that when Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” was written depression was a largely taboo topic and even more misunderstood. Medieval Communities and the Mad: Narratives of Crime and Mental Illness in Late Medieval France (2021) says “In most cases, madness was recognized as an illness with no clear external cause. Faced with a family member whose actions were so disruptive, many narratives tried to understand what might motivate a mad person to commit a crime, focusing on the misinterpretation of circumstances that might cause them to react inappropriately” (p.151) when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet mentally ill people were seen as criminals and people capable of evil things, this is why I find Hamlet’s portrayal of mental illness to be done well because the character Hamlet isn’t portrayed as someone who’s evil.
The film Hereditary (Ari Aster, 2018) shows what I believe to be a great example of depression and mental illness portrayed in media. The film follows Annie, a mother of two, after the death of her mother followed shortly by the death of her 13 year old daughter. Annie is slowly groomed by a devil worshiping cult trying to put the spirit of a demon into her son’s body however before all the horror film and devil cult stuff happens we see depression portrayed by Annie. Throughout the movie we see depression take hold of Annie as she has several breakdowns which tend to be similar to Hamlet’s. I feel Hamlet’s previously mentioned monologue (O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt…) parallels Annie’s breakdown in Hereditary. Hamlet goes on to say “Fie on ’t, ah fie! ’Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely.” (A.1 S.2 139-141, Shakespeare) Hamlet is monologuing about his disgust with the world and how things have played out. This scene reminds me a lot of in Hereditary when Annie completely breaks down and kneels in front of her bed screaming “I just want to die” over and over again. Both characters are completely upset with the world and consider suicide to be an option.
Another example of a great portrayal of mental health in media I found is the film Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsesse, 1976) starring Robert DeNiro as “Travis Bickle”. Travis is (if you couldn’t guess) a taxi driver, Travis suffers from immense loneliness and depression. Throughout the film we see Travis becomes more and more isolated, delusional, and falls deeper into mental illness. Lots of scenes in film feature Travis’s diary being narrated to us, one particular occurrence of this stuck out to me “May 10th. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash away the garbage and trash off the sidewalks. I’m workin’ long hours now, six in the afternoon to six in the morning. Sometimes even eight in the morning, six days a week. Sometimes seven days a week. It’s a long hustle but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, three fifty a week. Sometimes even more when I do it off the meter. All the animals come out at night – whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take ’em to Harlem. I don’t care. Don’t make no difference to me. It does to some.” (Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsesse, 1976). This monologue reminds me a lot of Hamlet. Both characters are upset with their situation and wonder if they can deal with it any longer. Travis is upset with all the evil and things he sees as wrong that he sees on a daily basis driving and Hamlet is having difficulty dealing with the murder of his father and his uncle marrying his mother.
Some people may argue that Hamlet isn’t a good portrayal of depression or mental illness, the National Library of Medicine defines depression as “a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest”(National Library of Medicine, 2023) I think the incredibly famous “To be or not to be” monologue shows this perfectly. “To be or not to be—that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer”(A.3 S.1 64 – 65, Shakespeare) In this monologue Hamlet is pondering his own death and whether he should go on or if it even matters. I feel this perfectly encapsulates National Library of Medicine’s definition of depression, this monologue shows Hamlet’s complete lack of interest in the world and situation.
Shakespear is considered by many to be the greatest playwright of all time and it’s not hard to see why. Hamlet features many nuanced characters and the title character himself is perhaps the most nuanced and detailed in the whole play. Hamlet shows a great example of depression especially for the time when it was written.
Works Cited
Aster, Ari,, et al. Hereditary. Santa Monica, CA, Lionsgate, 2018
Scorsese, Martin. Taxi Driver. Columbia Pictures, 1976.
Pfau, Aleksandra. Medieval Communities and the Mad: Narratives of Crime and Mental Illness in Late Medieval France. Amsterdam University Press, 2021. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1bjc3k5. Accessed 18 Mar. 2024.
Hamlet: Folger shakespeare library. Hamlet | Folger Shakespeare Library. (n.d.). https://www.folger.edu/
Chand, S. P. (2023, July 17). Depression. StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430847/
Sprockets and Springes 