The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

Running head: HUMANITY
Humanity
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1HUMANITY
1) The finding of the truth is one of the most interesting aspects for the two of the most
famous plays in the English literature Oedipus and Hamlet. The concept of the truth has been
deemed as very sensitive in both these plays (Uddin, 2014). Both the central figures of these
plays have roamed in quest of their identities and the ultimate truth of their life in terms of their
identities. Hamlet heard about the truth from the ghost of his deceased father that he had been
killed by his uncle Claudius. As the message was from the ghost, hamlet did not want to believe
everything that he heard. This is why he needed some time to avenge the death of his father.
Hamlet was very angry at his uncle Claudius but he hesitated to kill him straight away because
he did not have any proper evidence (Young, 2014).
The concept of the truth is more complex in Oedipus since most of the plot is woven in a
very complicated manner. Oedipus learned that eventually he would kill his father and marry his
mother (Uddin, 2014). The scene actually arrives when Oedipus would go on to kill a person on
the road. Thereby, he appeared at a castle to search for truth and enters it after he successfully
answered the riddle asked by the sphinx. Finally he married the queen who was unfortunately his
mother. This shows how complicated the story is and how Oedipus discovered the actual truth at
the end of the play (Young, 2014).
2) In the analysis of Hamlet, Freud went on to argue that the decisions and behaviors of
hamlet were driven by the Oedipus complex in lots of ways. Freud has used the psychological
theory and came to conclude that Oedipus complex was very much present in the Shakespeare’s
play Hamlet (Cameron, 2014). Many other psychologists have also used the psychoanalytic
theory to show that Hamlet has used this kind of Oedipus complex to a certain extent indeed.