Activiy 1.6 (No, they're not in order.)

Activity 1.6

Hamlet is securely past the first level of Maslow’s Hierarchy. We notice that he’s striving for revenge and focused on those psychological needs that he’s trying to fulfill. For much of the play he is trying to discover whether the ghost of his father was telling the truth about his death, or if he was just a hallucination. This would be listed under the highest level on Maslow’s Hierarchy, the ‘acceptance of facts’. Once this need has been met, Hamlet moves onto his next psychological need: avenging his father, by killing his uncle, Claudius. This need, however is temporarily abandoned when Claudius sends him away to England. His needs are lowered to a more basic level, (the second lowest level, to be exact) which is simply to survive and escape from certain death. Arriving back in Denmark, Hamlet resumes his plans for avengement, climbing higher on the Hierarchy.

One interesting thing about Hamlet is that he never seems to need to meet anything on the fourth level of the Hierarchy: esteem. His respect of and for others seems to either always be there for certain people. But for others—even when Hamlet is focused on the highest level—he shows little respect ever. He never acts as if he lacks confidence, and his self-esteem looks to be anywhere but low. It’s interesting, because though someone can jump back and forth on the levels if it’s required for them, Hamlet almost can be considered someone who almost cannot be ranked. There are levels that he doesn’t seem to ever try to achieve, some which he has little difficulty with, and some which are seemingly combined.