The Similarities between Hamlet and Jack Lyne - Essay Example

However, Hamlet is also restricted by his own indecisiveness. It is this indecision that would ultimately lead to tragedies that he and the people associated with him would encounter. Stacy Title’s film Let the Devil Wear Black bears so much similarities to the plot of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Aside from the similarity of the plot the lead characters in both stories are presented as individuals who may know about what should be done but are too indecisive to carry it out. Indecision is clearly the major flaw of Hamlet.

His father’s ghost had already spoken to him in order inform him that he was murdered by Hamlet’s own uncle, Claudius. His indecision immediately after he heard about his father’s murder from the deceased king’s ghost is, however, understandable because he may have been skeptical at first. His indecisiveness became more pronounced though even after he presented a play to Claudius which apparently refers to his father’s murder as recounted by the ghost. He might had done this in an apparent attempt to prove further the veracity of the ghost’s account, the positive result of which would strengthen his resolve to carry out his revenge.

However, “the flaw is Hamlet’s indecisive revenge for Claudius’s usurpation” (Hagger 2012, p.133). . Jack Lyne a “neurotic graduate student adrift in a nihilistic universe, returns home, to find his mother romantically involved with the brother of his recently deceased father” (Rothwell 2004,p. 259). The motivation for his plan to kill his uncle, however, was not because of the romantic affair with his mother but because of the information he received from an anonymous source regarding his father’s death.

Similar to the Hamlet, it was his uncle who murdered his father. The more striking similarity is that Jack too was filled with irresolution, granting his uncle, Carl Lyne, the initiative to preempt his actions. Jack’s vacillation though may be considered as a natural result of his history of mental problems. Nevertheless, the hesitancy in his part also resulted in the tragic deaths of people around him. The difference between Hamlet and Jack is that the latter is not royalty but belonged to a family whose kingdom is in the underworld.

Both Hamlet and Jack Lyne had to confront certain moral issues as they deal with their respective fathers’ deaths and with the fact that they knew who caused it. In the case of Hamlet, it is clear that he was confronted with the morality of revenge and murder. His indecision over taking revenge against Claudius might have been prompted by his unresolved views over the morality of his objectives. It is unfortunate though that it is precisely “due to the cleavage in his nature which can never unify to pick up a task with a singleness of will and the will is itself split to direct his energies in opposite directions” (Khare 1998, p. 134). The irony is that Hamlet’s actions, which led to the death of more people, were all triggered by his