A Lacanian Reading of Hamlet: The Mourning Subject of Desire

This paper analyzes Shakespeare’s Hamlet as an interwoven drama between desire and death. Hamlet takes his desire as an enigma because he does not know what to do with it nor when to act accordingly. For Lacan, Hamlet is trapped in the alienated webs of the capitalized Other who, unconsciously, points him what and how to desire. At this crossroads, Hamlet appropriates his (M)other Gertrude and his beloved Ophelia in order to place them as the objects of his desire, that is, as his signified phallus. Therefore, for Lacan, Hamlet is the tragedy of desire.Este ensayo analiza la obra de Shakespeare, Hamlet, como el entresijo que existe entre deseo y muerte. Hamlet toma su deseo como un enigma porque no sabe qué hacer con él ni cuándo actuar en conformidad. De acuerdo con Lacan, Hamlet está atrapado en las redes alienantes del Otro, quien, inconscientemente, le indica qué y cómo desear. En esta encrucijada, Hamlet toma a su madre Gertrudis y a su amada Ofelia con el fin de elevarlas al objeto de su deseo, a saber, su falo significante. Por lo tanto, para Lacan, el drama de Hamlet es la tragedia del deseo