-Comparison: Choose two protagonists to compare: I chose Hamlet and Antigone - Research Paper Example

Shakespeare never published his plays therefore none of the original manuscripts of them remain. Regardless of the fact he never wished to publish his own plays, no copy right laws existed in that time so others took the liberty to do so. (www.william-shakespeare.info, 2005). Hamlet was most likely based on the third book of Gesta Danorum which is considered a respected source of Denmark’s early history. Antigone was written by the author Sophocles about 441 b.c. Apparently in ancient Greece, tragedies were performed and then the audience would pick the favorite and its author would win.

Antigone was a play submitted to such a contest and while we don’t know if Sophocles won that contest, he wrote a play still influential to this day. Antigone was originally wrote in Greek and we can’t be exactly certain what was lost in translation, just as Shakespeare’s Hamlet was subject to alteration by those who recomposed his work and put it into print. (Tryrrell, Bennett, www.stoa.org). The stories relate to each other in multiple ways. Both protagonists (Antigone and Hamlet) challenge authority, both authoritarians happen to be their uncles.

Creon is the brother of Antigone’s mother, while Claudius is the brother of Hamlet’s recently deceased father. Both uncles are in the position of ultimate authority, they are kings. . Creon declares that anyone who buries the body would be subject to death but that does not stop Antigone from burying her brother properly so he can be able to find peace in the afterlife. Hamlet’s father appears to him as a ghost and tells Hamlet it was his own brother Claudius that murdered him and usurped his throne and implores Hamlet to avenge his death by taking the life of Claudius.

The ghost of his father tells Hamlet that he cannot have peace until justice is served. Where Antigone is witness to the injustice her brother is shown, Hamlet did not witness his father’s death and cannot be certain that the ghost is telling him the truth of what happened. But Antigone and Hamlet’s shared mission in their stories is to serve justice for their dead relatives who are powerless to defend their own honor so that they can rest at peace with no unfinished business. Hamlet and Antigone are to be their vindicators.

Antigone and Hamlet are also betrayed and abandoned in the story. Antigone requests the aid of her sister to help bury their brother but Ismene refuses fearful of her life and even tries to convince Antigone not to go through with it. Antigone is left alone to bury her brother. In Hamlet, his mother Gertrude after her husband’s death marries Claudius, the man who killed him. Hamlet is dismayed by his mother’s lack of loyalty to his father and himself by aligning herself with the enemy. Hamlet is left alone to avenge the death of his father.

Gertrude and Ismene are more concerned with the comfort of their present circumstances than the truth of righting wrongs that have happened. Only when it is too late for Antigone and Hamlet do these ladies act on