Hamlet’s Anima Essay In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare presents Prince Hamlet as a character with an underdeveloped anima. The play Hamlet is about a prince whose father has been murdered by his own brother Claudius, in order to be the king. In Addition to that, Claudius marries his brother's wife. Later Hamlet sees the ghost of his father and tells him to seek revenge for him by killing Claudius and as he tries to get his revenge it causes the death of the whole family. Hamlet rejects both women in his life, which represents the rejection of his anima. Hamlet is presented as a character with an underdeveloped anima as he is constantly trying to reject his female qualities and his treatment towards Ophelia and Gertrude project the negative aspects …show more content…
To begin with, Ophelia is one of the women that Hamlet has a close association with and many of the negative aspects of his personality are reflected onto her because of his underdeveloped anima. Hamlet rejects Ophelia, which symbolizes him rejecting his anima “I loved you not” (3.1.119). Secondly, as Ophelia returns the love letters from Hamlet he knows that she is not being honest, and he knows that she loves him. As Hamlet realises this he tells her “this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof” (3.1.114-115). It can be argued that Hamlet saying that women are terrible and it shows his disgust towards his inner woman on Ophelia. Lastly, his bad treatment of Ophelia shows that his anima has not reached the 4 stages of individualization. Hamlet tells Ophelia“go thee to a nunnery” (3.1.l.138-139) and she cannot marry or have sex, which means she will not have children. Moreover, this suggests that Hamlet is not at the stage of great mother, which is the fourth stage of the development of the anima since he does not want to bring children to the corrupted world. This is because his thoughts are not holy and pure and he himself cannot nurture others without it, as he is not in harmony with his anima. Thus, Hamlet is projecting his negative aspects of his anima onto Ophelia that includes rejecting her and his anima, showing disgust in women through her as he presents his underdeveloped anima through the conversations they