Blog #211: Shakespeare and Neurodiversity: “Hamlet”

Jeffrey Snyder

Mar 28, 20224 min read

Pretend like you are playing a video game and you come to the final boss level where you win the game if you defeat the final boss. That is the case in education where that final boss is represented in the form of Shakespeare’s greatest work, “Hamlet.”

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Like all students whether general or specialized in terms of education levels, I had my encounter with “Hamlet” during my senior year of High School. Like a lot of my peers, we had very little choice to face “Hamlet” because that was how the cards were dealt to us.

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Laurence Olivier as Hamlet in “Hamlet” (1948)

To get right to the point, the story is clear in the sense that it is about a son trying to avenge his birth father’s death at the hands of his own uncle who married his own mother. As the story begins with “something was rotten in the state of Denmark,” we, the audience, get the idea that something is going to happen and we know that the story isn’t going to end well.

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I think that when it comes on a neurodiverse level, “Hamlet” is about a young man’s descent into madness and obsession which is something that happens to neurodiverse/disabled individuals when we are faced with a life changing challenge. Our obsession with obtaining a specific goal can ultimately end up like a virus that infects everyone around us.

Of course, Hamlet also has a desire to not only avenge his father, but force himself upon Ophelia, the daughter of Polonious, Claudius’ counselor. For any neurodiverse/disabled individuals who struggle with holding onto internal feelings for romance, “Hamlet” can teach us that if those we fall in love with don’t return their love to us, we move on to the next person.

I have been guilty in the past of not respecting the fact that I love someone, and they don’t love me in return. That was because I was blind and unaware of what I was doing would never come to fruition, but I was also in denial.

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“Hamlet” can also teach us about getting into someone’s psychological state in the form of the play scene where Hamlet uses theater to force his uncle to crack about his father’s murder.

Many times, I have had my psychological state being broken into in the form of my family or my psychologist by asking me intrusive questions or bringing up topics that I would much rather not discuss. As I said before in past blogs, I get the fact that this is because people care about me, but if I say that I don’t want to discuss certain things or have certain topics brought up, I mean it.

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In a way, “Hamlet” is about psychology and what goes on in the minds of certain people. We all want to get under each other’s skin either because we enjoy it for no reason at all or we have a legitimate reason for it, like Hamlet.

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Mel Gibson as Hamlet “in “Hamlet” (1990)

Now, a lot of English teachers will use “Hamlet” as part of their curriculum because of the culture and the learning aspects that the play has, but it’s important for English teachers to remember that some students will be having their own “Hamlet” style lives outside of the classroom and that includes neurodiverse/disabled students.

For some, it can be therapeutic and allow them to challenge their own inner demons while for others, it can be just like rubbing salt into the wound. But the truth of the matter is that we cannot hide or run from our troubles and Shakespeare clearly demonstrates this when Hamlet is tasked by his father’s “ghost” to kill Claudius.

Those who are living “Hamlet” styled lives can look at Hamlet and picture themselves in his situation. Students might ask themselves what they would do in the situation Hamlet was in? How would he avenge his father’s death and how would I deal with the “Hamlet” style life I have in my family?

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But I think the challenge that some neurodiverse individuals struggle with is if they want their situation to end up just like “Hamlet” where if I go, you go with me. And it doesn’t have to involve poison or rapiers, it can involve many dangerous weapons of our choosing either both in the physical sense or in the mental sense.

When we try to emulate “Hamlet” in our problems, sometimes life can imitate art in more ways than one and that’s what I think goes through the minds of English teachers when they share “Hamlet” with their students.

You know how they say, “don’t try this at home”? Then, that’s what happens with “Hamlet.” What’s more is if someone dies on our watch or by our own hands, then we only have ourselves to blame in the end.

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Still, despite all of this, “Hamlet” is a play that more than qualifies as that final boss in the educational video game that we have to play in order to achieve the high school diploma or that next chapter in our lives. For a visual representation of “Hamlet,” well, there is plenty to choose from whether you can go for something classic to something more modern, but they are all the same in terms of story.

For this, I am going to give you my recommendations on what variants of “Hamlet” that may be ideal for your students.

A. Sesame Street “Monsterpiece Theater Presents: Hamlet.”