The Oedipus Complex

The noted Viennese physician Sigmund Freud was one of the firsts to suggest workable cures for mental disorders. Although Freud’s theories were at first disputed, his work became the foundation for treating psychiatric disorders through psychoanalysis. A psychological complex, according to Freudian theory, is a group of repressed feelings and desires. Based upon psychological research and various studies, Freud conceived the Oedipus complex. In Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex is a desire for …

…killing himself. This solution of murder -- suicide is one closely akin to what Freud has attributed, through his studies, to be the motive of suicide in melancholy. This is the solution that Hamlet finally adopts. Shakespeare somehow had the amazing talent of identifying psychological disorders hundreds of years before psychoanalysts even existed. Whenever Shakespeare intended to be the explanation, the fact that remains a mystery will keep literary critics busy writing for another 500 years.