Example Of Displacement In Hamlet

Displacement, in context of psychoanalytical criticism, is the replacement of a goal that is considered to be unacceptable or dangerous with a new aim that yields the same outcome but does not carry the disagreeable connotations present in the original goal. It is the unconscious transferring of ideas or emotions into a different form so as to repress them. Displacement is the unification between an image and a specific emotion.

In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, an example of displacement can be found in the recurring appearance of the color black. In act 1, scene 2 Gertrude tells Hamlet to “cast thy nighted color off” (line 68). She wishes Hamlet would stop wearing black mourning clothes. Gertrude advises him to “Seek for thy noble father in