Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/118

108 daughter complex, though by the mechanism of rationalisation they are here skilfully cloaked under the guise of worldly-wise advice. Hamlet's resentment towards him is thus doubly conditioned, in that first Polonius, by the mechanism of "decomposition," personates a group of obnoxious elderly attributes, and secondly presents the equally objectionable attitude of the dog-in-the-manger father who grudges to otHers what he possesses, but cannot enjoy, himself. In this way, therefore, Polonius represents the repellant characteristics of both the father and the grandfather of mythology, and we are not surprised to find that, just as Perseus accidentally slew his grandfather Acrisios, who had locked up his daughter Danae so as to preserve her virginity, so does Hamlet ' 'accidentally" slay Polonius, by a deed that resolves the situation as correctly from the dramatic as from the mythological point of view. With truth has this act been called the turning point of the play, for from then on the tragedy relentlessly proceeds to its culmination in the doom of the hero and his adversary.

The characteristics that constitute the Father-daughter complex are found in a similar one, the Brother-sister complex. This also may be seen in the present play, where the attitude of Laertes towards his sister Ophelia is quite indistinguishable from that of their father Polonius. Further, Hamlet not only keenly resents Laertes' open expression of his devoted affection for Ophelia–in the grave scene,–but at the end of the play kills him, as he had previously killed Polonius, in an accurate consummation of the mythological motive. That the Brother-sister complex was operative in the formation of the Hamlet legend is also evidenced by the incest between Claudius and the Queen, for from a religious point of view the two stood to each other in exactly the same relationship as do brother and sister. This conclusion may further be supported by the following avowedly more tentative–considerations. The preceding remark about the two main traits in Polonius, those characteristic of a pompous father of a son and a grudging father of a daughter, gives room for the supposition that his family was in a sense a rough duplicate of the main family in the legend. This notion of duplication of the principal characters will be mentioned in more detail in the next paragraph, and the present line of thought will then perhaps become clearer. In the sense here taken Laertes would therefore represent a brother of Hamlet, and Ophelia a sister. This being so, we would seem to trace a still deeper ground for the original motives of both Hamlet's misogynous turning from Ophelia, and his jealous resentment of Laertes. As, however, this theme of the relation between siblings is of only secondary interest in the Hamlet legend, discussion of it will be reserved