Don't Think Too Much About It

Firstly, I want to briefly mention how the man in the picture on the left looks similar to my English teacher. Might be just me. Just saying.


Recently there's been just so many things to do (and to not do). I've just had so much stuff to do and so much stuff on my mind.
You know who else has a lot of stuff on his mind? Hamlet. From Hamlet.

We all know who Shakespeare is, right?
That guy you always hear of. That guy you think of when 'literature' is mentioned. We are here to talk about one of his best known works: Hamlet.

...and you know what they say: You can't spell Hamlet without Ham!

Quick summary of what I have read so far:
Hamlet is the son of the king. The king recently died. The queen has a rather hasty marriage with the king's brother, Claudius, and Hamlet is very sad/angry/depressed/suspecting of this. He meets his father in the form of a ghost, who tells Hamlet that Claudius had killed him (the king).

Anyways, I can't really say much about the play yet, as I'm not even close to finishing one-third of the play, but through all the different versions of the scenes of Hamlet that I have seen through YouTube and other whickawhacka stuff like that, I can say that interpretations can vary. A lot. In fact, Shakespeare left so much room for interpretation, especially for Hamlet's character, that different versions can vary infinitely. Hamlet could be a shy guy living in the Middle Ages, an angry emo in modern Russia, or a crazy piece of [carrot] living in the post-zombie-apocalypse world of Buttpoopia in the year 2766. According to a man (or woman, no way to tell) called Sigmund Freud, Hamlet could basically represent a man "whose power of direct action is paralysed by an excessive development of his intellect. According to another view, the dramatist has tried to portray a pathologically irresolute character which might be classified as neurasthenic."

Quick break here!
Neurasthenic [noo'r-uh's-then-ik] : pertaining to or suffering from neurasthenia
...Yup, that helped a lot. Thank you, Dictionary.com!

Anyways, this neurasthenia is apparently characterized by extreme lassitude and inability to cope with any but the most trivial tasks. That sort of does become what Hamlet seems to be, right? He has so much on his mind and yet he keeps it all for himself, incapable of taking any real action... yet.
According to Sigmund Freud, "the hate which should drive him on to revenge is replaced in him by self-reproaches, by scruples of conscience, which remind him that he himself is literally no better than the sinner whom he is to punish." Hamlet just thinks too much (either that or I just don't think enough).

Think. Think. Think. Act-
Oh wait, I'm not prepared. More think.
Should I? Hesitate. Hesitate. Oh, whatever. Act.
Regret. Now what? Think. Welcome to Hamlet.
It's like as if the emotions are flying up into the sky and bursting spontaneously like fireworks, only that instead of brilliant, pretty lights, there's more emotions (and occasionally, blood).

There's a certain action we, readers, expect from Hamlet. Yet, Hamlet is never certain.

For now, I'll just cut it off here. I'm way too early in the play to actually know much about Hamlet's character. I think I'll just end this with a quote from our friendly Freud: "...all genuinely creative writings are the product of more than a single motive and more than a single impulse in the poet's mind, and are open to more than a single interpretation."

Korean Hamlet!