T.S. Eliot enunciates his Theory of Objective Correlative in his famous essay Hamlet and His problem. Eliot calls 'Hamlet' "an artistic failure" because it is wanting in Objective Correlative. Eliot says that every powerful character in a play has a flood of powerful feelings and emotions within his heart which force to express themselves. If the character raves or laments loudly all atone on the stage, the scene would appear to be highly crude and inartistic. His powerful emotions must express themselves through some suggestive objective symbols. These symbols may be objects or unconscious actions. These objective or actions are called objective correlative. Eliot says: "The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an objective correlative; in other words a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of the particular emotion; such that when the external facts which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked".
The innermost feelings of the character are objectified and externally presented on the stage through these objective correlatives. The best example of objective correlative is found in the "Sleep Walking' scene in Macbeth, where lady Macbeth walks holding a candle and rubbing her hands, as if washing them, and murmuring "all the perfumes of Arabia will not be able to sweeten this little hand". She does over again what she had done before in the scene of king Duncan
