A Freudian Psychoanalysis of Symbols in Faulkner’s The Hamlet

Abstract

William Faulkner is regarded as the representative of American Southern culture and literature. His works are famous for his writing techniques, artistic value and cultural setting. The Hamlet is one of Faulkner’s great works set in the Southern America, and the novel is filled with symbols. According to Freud, symbols are often used as the agency to combine the conscious and the unconscious together. From the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis, many symbolic images are related to the unconscious desire. Therefore, to understand a literary work well, it’s better to ruin the surface structure of arts to seek the unconscious meanings from symbols like incidents, plots, details and sceneries in the work. There are three main symbols that symbolize people’s unconscious desire in The Hamlet: the Eula’s buggies, the village’s activities and people’s purchasing behavior. All these symbolize the original unconscious desire of the villagers in the Frenchman place. The psychoanalysis of these symbols in The Hamlet is beneficial to deepen our understanding of human nature embodied in the novel.