The Power of Passion: A Psychoanalytical Study of Hamlet

Abstract

Passion is an intense or overpowering emotion which can either be positive, love and joy or negative, hatred or anger. Whether positive or negative, passion has a strong influence which pushes the passionate person to a heroic success or tragic end.  In Hamlet, the negative aspect of passion outweighs the positive one. Though mixed up with some love affairs, passion has rather claimed more lives than it has bestowed. The analysis will focus on this obsessive aspect of passion. Therefore, the article seeks to make a psychoanalytical study of the interconnection between formal and thematic elements to show the danger that, the lack of control of a passion, can cause to the passionate and to other people. It also seeks to explore and understand how negative ambition has driven characters to scenes of betrayal and revenge that have swallowed them all up. It finally proposes some processes for a control of our passions to benefit from more balanced and positive experience in life.