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Hamlet and His Problems 3
Hamlet and His Problems 3
Hamlet also fails as a work of art due to the obvious lack of objective correlative which is
the only way of expressing emotion with the help of a set of objects, situations, and a chain of
events which will be the formula of that particular emotion. The presentation of facts and
external situation should be adequately used for the full realization of the pent up emotional
energies. This is lacking in Hamlet. Hamlet is dominated by an emotion which is inexpressible
because it is in excess of the facts as they appear. Hamlet suffers from bafflement at the absence
of objective equivalent to his feelings and emotions. Hamlet’s disgust is caused by his mother,
but his mother is not an adequate equivalent for it. His disgust exceeds her. It is thus a feeling
which he cannot understand. He fails to objectify it. It poisons his life and works as a hindrance
to action. None of the possible actions can satisfy it. His mother’s character is so negative and
trivial that she arouses in Hamlet the feeling which she is incapable of representing. In Hamlet it
is the buffoonery of an emotion which he cannot express in art. If Hamlet were an adolescent, his
inability to express the intense emotion would be understandable, but he is a mature person.
There is no excuse for him. Eliot’s comment on Shakespeare’s Hamlet is justified as the play
fails to do justice to the original material and it lacks an objective equivalent for the
externalization of the repressed emotions and feelings.