Abstract

William Faulkner is one of the greatest modern writers in America. The Hamlet is a representative work among his later works, playing a very important role in his writing career. The paper is to analyze unconscious desires and conscious rationality of the major male characters in The Hamlet based on Freud’s consciousness and unconsciousness theory. The three major male characters, Flem Snopes, Will Varner and Ratliff, have their own unconscious desires for social position, reputation or fortune. However, their desires are against morality and social customs in the Frenchman’s Bend. Therefore, these desires are repressed into their unconsciousness. A sense of nervousness would appear in the unconsciousness due to the repression, and one must look for a way on the consciousness to release the sense. Their rationality could be considered the way of realizing their unconscious desires on the conscious level. Their rationality is seen in their language, actions or manners and so on. Therefore, the major male characters could be taken as combinations of unconscious desires and conscious rationality.

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