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PAGE 108
JONES
daughter complex, though by the mechanism of rationalisation
they are here skilfully cloaked under the guise of worldly-wise
advice. Hamlet's resentment towards him is thus doubly con-
ditioned, in that first Polonius, by the mechanism of "decom-
position," personates a group of obnoxious elderly attributes,
and secondly presents the equally objectional attitude of
the dog-in-the-manger father who grudges to others what he
possesses, but cannot enjoy, himself. In this way, therefore,
Polonius represents the repellant characteristics of both the
father and the grandfather of mythology, and we are not surprised
to find that, just as Perseus accidentally slew his grandfather
Acrisios, who had locked up his daughter Danae so as to
preserve her virginity, so does Hamlet "accidentally" slay
Polonius, by a deed that resolves the situation as correctly
from the dramatic as from the mythological point of view.
With truth has this act been called the turning point of the
play, for from then on the tragedy relentlessly proceeds to its
culmination in the doom of the hero and his adversary.
The characteristics that constitute the Father-daughter
complex are found in a similar one, the Brother-sister complex.
This also may be seen in the present play, where the attitude
of Laertes towards his sister Ophelia is quite indistinguishable
from that of their father Polonius. Further, Hamlet not only
keenly resents Laertes' open expression of his devoted affection
for Ophelia--in the grave scene,--but at the end of the play
kills him, as he had previously killed Polonius, in an accurate
consummation of the mythological motve. That the Brother-
sister complex was operative in the formation of the Hamlet
legend is also evidenced by the incest between Claudius and
the Queen, for from a religious point of view the two stood to
each other in exactly the same relationship as do brother and
sister. This conclusion may be further supported by the fol-
lowing--avowedly more tentative--considerations. The pre-
ceding remark about the two main traits in Polonius, those
characteristic of a pompous father of a son and a grudging
father of a daughter, gives room for the supposition that his
family was in a sense a rough duplicate of the main family in
the legend. This notion of duplication of the principal char-
acters will be mentioned in more detail in the next paragraph,
and the present line of thought will then perhaps become
clearer. In the sense here taken Laertes would therefore
represent a brother of Hamlet, and Ophelia a sister. This
being so, we would seem to trace a still deeper ground for the
original motives of both Hamlet's misogynous turning from
Ophelia, and his jealous resentment of Laertes. As, however,
this theme of the relation between siblings is of only secondary
interest in the Hamlet legend, discussion of it will be reserved
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