How did Ernest Jones apply psychoanalysis to Shakespeare’s Hamlet?

In the field of literary criticism, the psychoanalyst Ernest Jones famously applied Sigmund Freud’s theories to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet to explain the protagonist’s central enigma: his persistent hesitation to avenge his father’s murder.12

In his influential essay (1910), later expanded into the book Hamlet and Oedipus (1949), Jones argued that Hamlet’s irresolution stems from an unconscious Oedipus complex. Jones posited that Hamlet identifies with his uncle, Claudius, because Claudius has committed the very acts—killing the father and marrying the mother—that Hamlet himself unconsciously desired to perform. Consequently, Hamlet is unable to punish Claudius without simultaneously confronting and punishing his own repressed desires, leading to his famous psychological paralysis.123

While this interpretation remains a significant landmark in Freudian criticism, it is one of many theories regarding the character's nature, and no single explanation for Hamlet's hesitation has achieved universal acceptance among scholars.3