Generally, Hamlet is considered either a 4 or a 6.

Posted by Reprinting Thomas Condon on May 02, 2001 at 19:25:41:

In Reply to: Hamlet posted by Lisza on May 02, 2001 at 18:39:29:

THE TWO HAMLETS
OK, lovers of paradox: our subject is Hamlet as portrayed in two films - Laurence Olivier's 1948 version and the more recent Franco Zeffirelli film featuring Mel Gibson in the title role.

What's paradoxical? In the two films, Hamlet is portrayed as two different Enneagram styles. Olivier plays him as a Four and Mel Gibson as a counterphobic Six. The same play, the same lines, but two totally different emotional cores.

This just happens to correspond with Don Riso's and Helen Palmer's respective assessments in their books, Personality Types and The Enneagram. Shakespeare scholars I've polled would support Riso and fault Mel Gibson for getting Hamlet wrong. A further wrinkle is that Olivier was a Four in real life while nervous, loyal family man Gibson is a counterphobic Six. Gibson plays Sixes very well; his character in the Lethal Weapon movies is a near psychotic rendition of the same energy he brings to Hamlet.

Hamlet, 1948.
"There's something in his soul on which his melancholy does brood." The traditional interpretation of Hamlet is as "the melancholy Dane," and Laurence Olivier plays him as moody, sullen and depressive.

This is Hamlet without the nerves - he lacks the basic terror that a Six would harbor. He's bitter and whiny, both tender-voiced and tragic-minded. His desire to slay the King (who killed his father) seems more a glum revenge for being abandoned than the issue of justice it would be for a Six. Olivier also adds a touch of vanity ("I am very proud ... ambitious"), making Hamlet a bit of a snob, afloat in an air of his own specialness.

Like Wuthering Heights, this black-and-white film is framed in brooding shadows and contains almost no humor. Hamlet as a Four is strangely more sympathetic than Hamlet as a Six. His dilemma is supported by the dark, romantic way the film is shot. Melancholy is made to be a tragic condition of existence rather than a function of personal neurosis. This aura of cosmic loss obscures the fact that, psychologically speaking, Hamlet is a Momma's Boy stalling at the gate of adulthood. (Turn to Hamlet under "Sixes.")

[Sorry, but the excerpt for Hamlet under Sixes is not available at his web site]

Follow Ups:

• Hey, maybe that's why I guessed he's a 5, because that's between 4 and 6. [nt] Lisza 20:02:18 05/02/01 (0)

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