Activity 1.5
Describe Hamlet’s personal reality using Maslow’s Hierarchy
Due to various events in Prince Hamlet’s life, he is far away from reaching the point of self-actualization.
As far as most his physiological needs go, there are no problems, with the exception of sex. He no longer sees is Ophelia, therefore he is deprived of sex.
Most of the safety needs that can be applied to him have been shattered.
- He no longer has safety of his body, for he at times doubts his own sanity wondering whether or not he has been fooled by the devil. This would tie in to his safety of health as well.
- He no longer has safety of the family, for his father was murdered by his uncle, who married his mother and is now his new father figure. Would you feel safe knowing that your new father murdered your biological one? Hamlet’s family has fallen apart. He no longer even trusts his mother.
The needs of Hamlet which were probably dented the most are love and belonging.
- He no longer trusts any of his friends, for he knows that Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are simply serving the King and Queen and have betrayed him in a sense. They did not come to see him out of their own wills, and were ready to lie about it. To them, serving the King and Queen became more important than their friendship with Hamlet. So much for friendship.
- Hamlet’s family provides him with no love and belonging whatsoever. His father, whom he adored, is dead. He feels betrayed by his mother, and in a sense he has been because she chooses to believe her new husband instead of her own son, thinking he has simply gone mad. In fact, when Hamlet is mourning over the death of his father, there is no comfort given to him, he is simply told that he should move on. Even when Claudius and Gertrude believe him to have lost his mind, they chose to send him away to England instead of try and help him.
- As for sexual intimacy, his lover Ophelia does what she is told when asked to no longer see Hamlet. Because of this, he is completely deprived from any sexual intimacy, and has his heart broken.
His esteem needs have been affected fairly strongly as well.
- He loses respect for the people around him; His mother, Claudius (if there was any to begin with), Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Polonius, and the list never ends. He begins to mock people constantly and treat them with no respect whatsoever. There are a few people whom he does treat respectfully, which are the players, an Horatio – and he also respectfully regards Fortinbras and his army, willing to give up their lives to fight for a piece of land worth absolutely nothing.
- He also loses respect from others by acting disrespectfully towards them. A main factor in this is that people believe him to be crazy, and crazy people aren’t usually respected. Claudius is willing to have him killed, his mother betrays him, Ophelia betrays him, he is spied on, his friends discount his intelligence, and it goes on. This is not a way that a respected person would be treated.
- As far as achievements go, Hamlet has one main task on his mind – which is getting revenge and killing Claudius- , and it seems that there are always reasons for him not to achieve this. It keeps on getting pushed, for which he was aware, and it takes a long time before he starts to take matters into his own hands and actually start at least planning to achieve things. There is one good achievement that he had, which was coming up with the idea of the play to find out if the ghost he saw was actually telling the truth. Then, at the end of course, he finally kills Claudius, only he dies shortly after, not having much time to rejoice over his victory.
