Watterson, William Collins. Hamlets
Lost Father. Hamlet Studies 16 (1994): 10-23.
HAMLET / PARENTHOOD / PSYCHOANALYTIC / YORICK
This article asserts that Yoricks abstract presence and Hamlets
memories of the court jester constitute a benign inscription of
paternity in the play, one which actively challenges the masculine ideals
of emotional repression and military virtus otherwise featured
so prominently in Shakespeares drama of revenge (10). Unlike
the other father figures in Hamlet who represent patriarchal
authority (e.g., the Ghost, Claudius, Polonius), Yorick is the absent
surrogate parent who showed a young Hamlet alternatives to phallocentric
oppression and who remains a central figure in Hamlets psyche
precisely because he has been lost (11). By prematurely dying
(possibly due to syphilis), Yorick abandoned a seven-year-old Hamlet
in the pre-genital stage; hence, Hamlet identifies him as the cause
of his sexual deficiency and associates him permanently with his
own anality (18). Yet Yorick also endowed Hamlet with the skills
of jesting and merrymaking, which are so evident in the exchange between
Hamlet and the gravediggers. All play is set aside during Hamlets
interaction with Yoricks skull, as the residual child in
Hamlet articulates the pain of loss over his childhood mentor
(16). Perhaps the mournful sentiments were shared by Shakespeare, who
lost his father around the time that Hamlet was being written
(17). While Yorick contradicts paternal cliches, he also raises questions
regarding maternal stereotypes and the femininity of death. Even the
origin of Yoricks name suggests an obscure conflation of
gender, [which] actually encodes the idea of feminine fatherhood
(18). Ultimately, Yorick instills in Hamlet values and emotions
fundamentally at odds with the patriarchal codes of masculine behavior
(19).
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