Emotional Recognition Project of Shakespeare\'s

Emotional Recognition Project of Shakespeare's Hamlet

Hamlet experiences many emotions during the course of the play. Six of these emotions are grief, confusion, love, anger, fear, and forgiveness. This wide range of emotions allows us to understand Hamlet on a deeper level. His emotions also show us that he is nothing if he is not real.

In Act I Scene 2, Hamlet expresses grief after his father dies. He tells Gertrude:

Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forced breath

Nor the dejected behavior of the visage

That can denote me truly. (Shakespeare I.ii.80-6)

Grief brings on a host of other emotions, including depression. The picture below illustrates the grief young Hamlet must have felt upon the death of his father.

In Act I Scene 4, Hamlet experiences confusion when the ghost appears. He says:

Be though a spirit of health or goblin damned,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou comes is such a questionable shape (I.iv.44-8)

The ghost causes constant confusion for Hamlet throughout the entire play because even though Hamlet wants to believe he is who he says he is, it is just too much for Hamlet to grasp.

Hamlet experiences love when he realizes that Ophelia is dead. Although he pretended not to love her, we see his true feelings when he realizes that she is gone. He says," I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers/Could not with all their quantity of love/Make up my sum."

Hamlet realizes the price of what he has done when Ophelia dies and his love is set free because he knows his chances are gone.

Hamlet feels anger toward Gertrude when he finally confronts her about her quick marriage to Claudius. He says:

What devil wasn't

That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope. O shame, where is thy blush? (III.iv.86-91)

Hamlet experiences fear when he contemplates suicide in Act 3 Scene 1. His fear is compounded by uncertainty over what to do and doubt over some of the things he has witnessed. All of the negative emotions he has experienced bring him to a moment of fear and he says:

Whether 'tis nobler of the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,