Get Thee To a Shrink

Hamlet's gone crazy! That's what some people would say. However, how can we define crazy? How can we explain Hamlet's complicated state of mind, avoiding being misled by his tricks and devious actions? This problem calls for a well-trained psychiatrist and who better than the father of psychology himself, Sigmund Freud.
Freud begins by analyzing Hamlet's character, comparing his dilemma to the one of Oedipus in the work Oedipus Rex.  According to Freud, both situations deal with realizing a forbidden desire. However, instead of wanting to marry his mother, Hamlet wants to avenge his father.
As the play develops, Hamlet is revealed as incapable of carrying out his task. No matter how much he thinks and reasons with himself, he always arrives to the conclusion that he is incapable of acting against his uncle.
The question is why? Is he a coward, does he not abhor Claudius, or is he scared?
Freud wonders about these questions too, but he further explains what really happens in Hamlet's mind. Indeed, Hamlet is unable to take action, but only in his task. In the play Hamlet has no problem in killing an eavesdropper and sending two courtiers to their deaths in his place. What he cannot do is kill his uncle. Does he like him or something? No, he actually hates his guts. However "the loathing which would 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"(41). Hamlet, in other words, feels guilty. He can't bring himself to murder his uncle, because he then would be just as terrible as Claudius was. To Hamlet, that murder would be just wrong. The evil Claudius is a murderer who killed his father and then married his mother. He is the man who has taken his place and is the one "who shows him the repressed wishes of his own childhood realized"(41). All these factors have come together, forming an impediment in Hamlet's mind, which leads to his consequent "to do or not to do" action.
This, to Freud, is the explanation of Hamlet's weird character. All his crazy behavior and incoherent actions is merely a mask from which behind lies a man in doubt, confused by his own thoughts and unable to decide what to do. This simply proves that Hamlet is the perfect example of a human being. In some way, it might be possible that there is a Hamlet lying behind every person. Every conscience must have its doubts, its expectations, wishes and repressed dreams. It is simply the way of the human mind, and perhaps we all are a little crazy, for our own sake.