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Need help with my writing homework on Was Prince Hamlet Incapable of Action. Write a 1500 word paper answering; The major factor that hinders quick action is the fact that Claudius is married to his mother Gertrude soon after the death of his father.

Psychoanalytic readings of the play identify his predicament as the outcome of ‘Oedipus complex’, derived from the Greek play by Sophocles, and referring to a state where the son undergoes a phase in which his subconscious mind fosters a libidinal drive towards the mother. This possessiveness may even lead to a secret wish to kill the father and go to bed with the mother. Though this condition makes it easier for the prince to hate and eliminate the person who has occupied the place of his father, he is also burdened with the clashes between his original cause for revenge and his ambivalent relationship to his mother who has accepted Claudius, though she was not aware that he killed the King. Moreover, the love showered on him by Ophelia becomes a burden to him while he is trying hard to understand and confirm the way in which Claudius committed the murder.

Prince Hamlet represents the predicament of an individual who is shaped by the strict moralistic norms of Catholic faith and the logical influence of University education. In contrast with the quick thoughtless actions by Oedipus that led to his peril, the sagacity that Hamlet shows to analyze the situation and to act accordingly is commendable, though there was no scope for him to survive the ordeal. But his suffering prior to his death is more informed and self-inflicted in contrast to Oedipus’s sudden shock at the realization that he had unwittingly killed his father, married his mother and had children in her.

In a broad analysis, the protagonists in both the plays can be seen as representing the Dionysian and Apollonian concepts. Even as both characters depict these two elements in various amounts, Oedipus seems to exhibit more of the Dionysian element in his actions at the spur of the moment.