Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 3, Sc 4): The Ghost—Rational, Person-Like, Seen/Heard only by Hamlet—His Alternate Personality

My last post argued that Shakespeare’s gratuitous, unnecessary use of a ghost at the beginning of the play was in itself suggestive of the author’s multiple personality. My argument is bolstered in Act 3, Scene 4, when it is revealed—to anyone who knows about multiple personality—that the Ghost is not really a ghost, but is one of Hamlet’s alternate personalities.

The scene is a meeting between Prince Hamlet and his mother, Queen Gertrude. When the Ghost enters, Hamlet sees and hears it, but his mother does not. She takes his hallucination as clear evidence that he is psychotic. But her diagnosis is incorrect, since she doesn’t understand the difference between hallucinations in psychosis and hallucinations in multiple personality.

“The hallucinatory voices of MPD [multiple personality disorder] often carry on lengthy discussions that seem coherent and logical to the patient. This ‘secondary process’ [rational] quality can help to distinguish them from the more ‘primary process’ [irrational] voices reported by schizophrenic patients…MPD patients may also [visually] hallucinate their alter personalities as separate people existing outside of their bodies” (1, p. 62).

Let me give a real-life example of that kind of hallucination from one of the great novelists who had multiple personality, Charles Dickens, previously quoted in this blog. As recorded in Forster’s biography, Dickens tells about a vision he had when he was once on the road to Canterbury, was nearing the house called Gadshill-place, and he thought he saw, standing by the road, a strange young boy:

“Holloa!” said I [Dickens], to the very queer small boy, “where do you live?”

“At Chatham,” says he.

“What do you do there?” says I.

“I go to school,” says he.

    I took him up [into his carriage] in a moment, and we went on [Dickens recalls]. Presently, the very queer small boy says, “This is Gads-hill we are coming to, where Falstaff went out to rob those travellers, and ran away.”

“You know something about Falstaff, eh?” said I.

“All about him,” said the very queer small boy. “I am old (I am nine), and I read all sorts of books. But do let us stop at the top of the hill, and look at the house there, if you please!”

“You admire that house?” said I.

“Bless you, sir,” said the very queer small boy, “when I was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for me to be brought to look at it. And now I am nine, I come by myself to look at it. And ever since I can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, If you were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it. Though that’s impossible!” said the very queer small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring at the house out of window with all his might.

    I was rather amazed to be told this by the very queer small boy [Dickens recalls]; for that house happens to be my house, and I have reason to believe that what he said was true (2, pp. 4-5).

Thus, Dickens, in real life, conversed with a “ghost,” which was actually a child-aged alternate personality.

And so it is that people who are not psychotic, but do have multiple personality, may very well have the kind of experience with “ghosts” that Hamlet does.

1. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

2. John Forster. The Life of Charles Dickens. Vol. I. London, Chapman and Hall, 1874.