In the 400 years since, critics have debated endlessly if Hamlet was mad, was pretending to be mad, or occupied the shadowy territory in between. But what if we put the heir to Denmark’s throne on the other side of the couch: how would this poster boy of tortured souls fare as a mental health adviser?
At a basic level, a counsellor’s job is to listen with empathy, help analyse behaviour, and suggest corrective action. I believe Hamlet would have made a highly effective, if highly unorthodox, adviser. Here’s why.
Who better to understand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?
If you cast a stone in a sea of troubles, chances are it will land on something Hamlet has experienced. Whatever problems you may be facing, Hamlet’s are worse.
A beloved father who won’t stop making demands on you? Check. Hamlet’s father is dead, but is still commanding him to kill his uncle.
Toxic relatives who won’t leave you alone? Check. The said uncle, Claudius, is now king.
A parent you love but whose actions disgust you? CHECK. Hamlet’s mother has married Claudius, and he can’t stop thinking about her sleeping with him.
A society where the old manipulate the young and police their love lives? The woman Hamlet loves, Ophelia, has the nosiest father and brother.
The agony of having an independent mind when the other young people are docile and compliant? Hamlet’s contemporaries are all unquestioningly obeying either their father or their king.
A country where everyone is being spied on? Check. Hamlet’s castle, Elsinore, is festering with espionage schemes.
Hamlet is the sweet prince of soliloquies
Hamlet’s plot involves a ghost, skulls, the hero being kidnapped by pirates, an impending foreign invasion, stabbing and poisoning. And yet, what is best remembered from the play is the conversations the hero keeps having with himself.
The central problem of the play is, why did Hamlet not kill his uncle when his dad’s ghost asked him to? Avenging your loved ones is crowd-approved hero behaviour, from Shakespeare’s stages to our Jawans and Pathans and Tara Singhs.
But imagine Sunny Deol ripping off a handpump, and stopping to wonder if he was being fair to the villagers who depended on water from the handpump, on the birds and dogs who drank from the handpump, and to the ironsmith who made the handpump for a specific purpose. Sounds ridiculous, but such is the haunting power and beauty of Hamlet’s musings, as he debates with himself why he must kill his uncle and why he can’t, that all else is just backdrop.
No one likes a moper, but Hamlet mopes with crystal clear intelligence and persuasive poetry, forcing you to confront the basic existential choice between a life one did not choose and a death one can.
If you want someone to analyse your troubles from every possible angle and present you all sides of the story, which AI agent can come up with:
“Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do;’
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do’t. …”
Here, Hamlet is wondering why he hasn’t killed his uncle when he has the cause and will and means to accomplish the task. Is it because he is like an animal, oblivious of thoughts and sense of obligation? Or is he too scrupulous in thinking the matter over? His thinking, he believes, is motivated one-fourth by wisdom and three-fourths by cowardice.
Won’t let you forget you ‘are the paragon of animals’
Hamlet is tortured, depressed, disgusted with himself and with the world. Yet, not for a moment does he forget that the world is a beautiful place, and that human beings have “capability and god-like reason”.
When you are feeling low, it helps to remember that if you just look up, you’ll see “this most excellent canopy…this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.”
When you feel useless, let Hamlet remind you “what a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!” (Humans can give sympathy, charity, and justice like angels…can think and create like god).
However, Hamlet’s lesson is more important than ‘smell the roses and think positive’. It is that despite appreciating all the majesty and felicity of the world, one can find oneself in situations morally and emotionally abhorrent, and if that paralyses one into inaction, that’s not a lack, but a refusal to compromise the beauty and majesty of one’s soul.
To be or not to be the person the world demands you become is often the question, and Hamlet tells you it is okay to sit with the question till an answer comes to you, instead of rushing into corrective action.
But not forgetting Hamnet
Since we began this column with Hamnet, I cannot end it without recommending Maggie O’Farrell’s moving book about him, written from the viewpoint of Shakespeare’s wife. Very little is definitively known about Shakespe’s personal life. O’Farrell fills the gaps with a rich imagination that is respectful and lyrically beautiful. We have all been captivated and enthralled by what William Shakespeare created, and it is a uniquely pleasurable experience to watch him on the other side of creation.
See you after 15 days,
Yours Literary,
Yashee
yashee.s@indianexpress.com
P.S: If you love books, write to me with what work I should discuss next. If you are not a reader of novels, follow along, and maybe you will begin to delight in the wonder and wisdom, the practical value, and the sheer joy of fiction.
Hamlet mental health: Hamlet's plot involves a ghost, skulls, the hero being kidnapped by pirates, an impending foreign invasion, stabbing and poisoning. And yet, what is best remembered from the play is the conversations the hero keeps having with himself. (Photo: OpenAI) 
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