Rest assured, this piece is making fun of trigger warnings.

Doni Wilson writes at The Federalist.

9 Trigger Warnings for Hamlet

First of all, I thought right off the bat that you, as a professor, become a BIG WALKING SPOILER, because to give a “trigger warning,” you basically have to give all the high drama of a work away, and then the reading of the work, IF THE STUDENT THINKS HE OR SHE CAN HANDLE IT, will always already smack of anticlimax. That gig isn’t my big dream. Think of how angry people got when they heard spoilers for Game of Thrones or Downton Abbey? Do I really have to say, “Hey, if you have ever been dumped by your boyfriend higher on the social ladder and told to get yourself to a nunnery, WELL WATCH OUT because I am sure that was super traumatic, and like Hamlet, that guy might have been really cute. So, buck up, brace yourself, and get ready for potential break-up flashbacks….ahem.”

Right now, my students are really concentrating hard on writing their essay exams, and not one looks too traumatized. But if I had been in the know, I might have given these “trigger warnings” just in case Hamlet was too, well, uh, tragic. Funny, the Greeks were okay with one experiencing things like pity and fear: they called the experience of purging such emotions cathartic, and it was actually supposed to be good for you.

1) If you have ever seen a ghost, and were scared out of your mind even though smart enough to get into a university (hey, Horatio and Hamlet were getting all smartened up at Wittenberg!), then YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP ACT ONE SCENE ONE because maybe a ghost appears. Now I don’t really believe in ghosts, and I have never seen one, but maybe you have, so obviously I cannot relate to your level of trauma, and I have no idea if you will get all pale and speechless while reading this scene, never to be the same, so here is your trigger warning. You’re welcome. I am super relieved we are not reading Oedipus Rex.