Hamlet sends the two courtiers to their deaths

Hamlet sends two courtiers to the deaths intended for him, an act of deliberate and cunning self-preservation that complicates any reading of him as simply incapable of action. Sigmund Freud uses this episode to sharpen his account of the prince’s hesitation: Hamlet can act decisively, but cannot bring himself to take revenge on the man who displaced his father and occupies his place beside his mother.

The Action and Its Contrast

Freud distinguishes this calculated action from Hamlet’s other conspicuous moment of action, when he stabs the eavesdropper behind the arras in sudden passion. In the episode with the courtiers, by contrast, Hamlet acts purposefully, dispatching them to the death meant for himself. The difference matters: the prince’s conduct is not uniformly hesitant. He can move both impulsively and with cunning when circumstances permit.

What the Action Reveals

The courtiers’ deaths expose the limits of explanations that treat Hamlet as generally irresolute or paralyzed by thought. Freud places the episode beside Hamlet’s failure to fulfil the revenge laid upon him by his father’s ghost. The contrast points to the particular nature of that task: Hamlet can eliminate others to escape danger, yet cannot punish the man who has removed his father and taken his place beside his mother.

Place in Freud’s Interpretation

Freud reads Hamlet’s inhibition through the repressed wishes that the drama, unlike Oedipus the King, does not state openly. In his account, the uncle embodies the realization of Hamlet’s own repressed infant wishes; the revulsion that might impel revenge therefore turns inward as self-reproach and scruples of conscience. The dispatch of the courtiers does not resolve the prince’s delay. Instead, it makes that delay more pointed: Hamlet’s capacity for action is visible, while the specific act he cannot perform reveals the conflict Freud identifies beneath the play’s plot.