o him, betrayed Hamlet by listening to her father. Hamlet knew that Ophelia was listening to her father and was only trying to get information from him to report to her Polonius. Also Gertrude's marriages to Claudius, the murderer, as well as how her psychological impact on Hamlets mind hinders his ability to kill Claudius, are manifestations of these facts. These facts disturb him by making him feel weary and estranged of womens' emotional weaknesses, which in turn make him feel weary of women in general. That weariness of women threatens his sense of self-actualization, because it is much more difficult for him to carry on a normal sex life if he feels estranged by women in general; a heterosexual man who is unable to carry on a normal sex life with women (Cahn 91). In attempting to kill Claudius, Hamlet risks psychological estrangement that he will likely experience psychological estrangement occurring on multiple levels. He would feel estrangement of his bond of motherly love, his bond of womanly love, his bond of friendship, his bondage to his religious and normative principles, and his bond to his professional colleagues. Many different forms of estrangement occurring simultaneously risk his psychological sense of identity. The realization that he faces such enormous pressures shapes his seemingly bizarre behavior in the play, and makes him struggle against the awesome weight of his obligation to destroy Claudius. All of this, of course, is in addition to his basic fear of being executed if he attempts to kill Claudius....
