Hamlet and King Oedipus - Book Report/Review Example

Name: Instructor: Course: Date Texts 1. Compare Hamlet and King Oedipus in terms of how the breaking or corruption of trust between characters is central to both tragedies. Discuss no more than two or three examples from each text. Chosen Text one: Hamlet reference quotes from Hamlet Book author Shakespeare/Prescott, Publisher: Penguin Books Publication date: 2005, Edition One The two plays share some common relationship of innocence and illusion. Both of them have protagonists that appear at the initial stages of the plays with a different identity. This breaks the reality through the illusion eliciting results that are not desired by ether of them. The two plays focus on two kings who have to leave behind their innocence as they are being led by the truth towards being enlightened before falling. This battle is between the darkness and light: here light represents the truth while dark represents the lies. From the beginning to the end of the two plays, it can be seen that the two protagonists have been put in isolation, and they are living in their own worlds. They are entirely unaware of the truths that surround them (Shakespeare/Prescott 6). In the case of Hamlet, being brought up by loving parents who show their love makes him believe that the demise of his father was because to natural causes. Looking at the case of Oedipus, the prime character holds on to the thought that he has run away from the prophecy of Apollo who declared that he will murder his father after growing up. He further decreed that the main character would marry his own mother after killing the king and queen. This makes the two reach a point where they open their eyes to the real life that surrounds their worlds full of illusions. The ghost of Hamlet’s dead father approaches Hamlet and reveals that Hamlet’s uncle, who happens to be the brother of Hamlets father, murdered him (Duggan 15). On the other hand, Oedipus learns about the truth when Prophet Tiresia accused him of murdering King Laius thus achieving his destiny, which he had wished to escape. At the end, both leaders take actions that lead them to fall in different ways: Hamlet dies while Oedipus loses his vision. As the story begins, Hamlet is seen to be living in a world of illusion that blocks him from seeing the occurrences in the real world. He is obsessed with the belief that the death of his father was because of natural grounds and nothing else (Shakespeare/Prescott 14). When he comes to learn about the truth, he is forced to embrace the uneasy world of experience and adulthood thereby abandoning his safe naiveté and innocent harbor. He stands at his castle and delivers a speech to God and to himself. The speech is full of comments on how his mother was quick in getting married to his uncles. At that time, Hamlet begins to end his innocence. He thinks that his mother betrayed his father by getting married to his uncle. His mother’s new marriage shutters Hamlet’s illusion that there was a perfect union between his parents. Hamlet utters words such as “Must I remember”, in this play. He uses such quotations to wonder whether his mother was in a true relationship with his father. Later he is awakened when he discovers the truth that his uncle had murdered his own father. He begins to develop doubts and asks himself questions such as “to be or not to be”. In the case of Oedipus, he was living under the cover of the illusion that he ran away from his destiny, which required him to murder his father and proceed on to marrying his mother who was the queen. This illusion is the one that brought him the blindness about the truth. Oedipus sees the light, which implies that he has vision, but he is still blind, thus lives in the dark full of lies. Finally, both plays end with a loss of innocence that destroys both Kings. Hamlet and Oedipus lose their virtues and power. One of them loses his life while the other loses his vision. They were being protected by their innocence; they were later destroyed by their knowledge (Duggan 27). Chosen Text Two: Sophocles, King Oedipus Play (in The Theban Plays) Kings Hamlet and Oedipus share the common element of tragedy. However, the tragedy of Hamlet has been expanded more thus going beyond the ancient tragedy of Greek. Hamlet is a tragic hero who carries the burden of accomplishing revenge on the murderers of his father. He is not the cause of the regicide pollution. On the other hand, Oedipus is depicted as the unwitting fashioner who causes his own downfall. This is later revealed to him when he recognizes and repents. Oedipus tells his personal and tragic story when he speaks to the Thebes people. Oedipus causes pollution thus making this city suffer. There is irony whereby when King Oedipus gives the suggestion that he will only protect himself if he avenges Laius. He further wants to take on the position of Laius: he is not aware that he is Laius (Sophocles 9). The call by King Oedipus on Prophet Tiresias because he wants him to help in uncovering the death of Laius and provide a cure for the Plague heightens the irony to its peak. Vision has been used as a metaphor in an ironical way in that King Oedipus, who is seemingly brilliant, cannot see what the blind prophet can see. These are things such as the crimes of the King such as murder and incest. In Hamlet, the regicide crime has been given a different treatment. In the play, the hero is made the tragic character. This is not done because of his character but rather on the grounds of his crime of pride. After being tormented with his dead father’s ghost, Hamlet discovers the truth, and he is pushed to revenge his father’s death. His father’s ghost symbolizes the regicide corruption and conscience is brought right at the doorstep of Hamlet. He feels guilty because of failing to notice this wrong and this justifies his character of being indecisive. Hamlet goes ahead on laying a trap on the new King. In order to solve his problems of doubting himself, he has to procrastinate. However, he wishes that his father’s ghost is not a reality and tries to convince himself that it could be just an imagination of his father’s figure and the strange duty ahead of him, which he is supposed to perform (Sophocles 23). The two kings are regicide. They ride on the pollution of crimes through self-destruction and incest. In the two plays, emphasis is put on a tragic irony that follows the chain of events, which lead in to the catharsis rituals. However, in Hamlet, the character is much more complicated than in Oedipus. 2. Select two of the four texts we have studied so far this semester (The Iliad to Hamlet) and discuss how kinship ties are crucial in calming or redirecting conflict. Chosen Text one: Hamlet Reference Quotes From Hamlet. Book Author Shakespeare/Prescott, Publisher: Penguin Books Publication date: 2005, Edition One In this book, Hamlets father appears in the form of a ghost, and he pushes Hamlet to seek for revenge on people who killed him. At that time, the community was under codes of conduct that governed the people of this community. According to these codes of conduct, Hamlet was to avenge the murder of his father. He gave consent to this because it was his duty. However, his belief in Christianity was against killing other people. Revenge was not an exception according to these principles. These two instincts appear to be in opposition thus pushing Hamlet in a state of predicament. Consequently, Laertes and Fortinbras are not worried due to their immoral souls and their intentions to avenge the death of their fathers. Therefore, kinship ties have heightened the conflict between the three sons whose fathers have been killed. Concerning the case of Hamlet, his mother’s actions caused the disgust in him. This is because it did not take long after his father’s death, before his mother started a relationship with his uncle. The conflict is further exacerbated when Hamlet’s uncle ends up murdering his brother. He did this in order to take over his position as the king. In the case of Laertes, to add on to his father’s assassination, the death of his sister and his insanity caused him enough sorrows. Laertes puts the blame on Hamlet and ends up acting in haste and in a fashion that appears to be imprudent. However, kinship has also been evident in calming conflicts. When Hamlets’ mother receives rants from his son, his father’s ghost appears suddenly and gives him a warning telling him to calm her down. This is further seen when Hamlet’s mother attempts to calm down his son whenever he goes out of control. Conflict and anger is redirected when the uncle of Fortinbras dissuades him from participating in the war. Claudius persuades Laertes to stop preventing his spleen from him; instead, he should rescue his anger for Hamlet. This shows that the anger of Laertes has been deflected and redirected in a cunning way towards a different target who happens to be Hamlet. Chosen Text Two: The Iliad by Homer Book One and Three Only The problems of Achilles are brought to an end through reconciliation thus making him a super hero. His anger has been categorized in two main waves. When he withdraws from the battle due to his conflict with Agamenon, it marks the beginning of his first wave. This conflict ends when Achilles gives consent to the offer from Agamenon, and they agree about Briseis. He again becomes angry after the death of Patroklos, but it ends when he goes back and takes the body of Hektor to Priam (Homère, 12). The above situations suggest that the wrath of Achilles drew him away from people around him. First, he is alienated form general humanity and later from his companions in the war. He accomplishes a reconciliation thus being able to merge his heroic society and the human society. However, he remains a hero who cannot be understood by many. Achilles is accepted, and many people in the community admire him. As he heads his process of reconciliation, he is regarded as the most memorable hero just like Oedipus or Hamlet. Despite all this, he is still different from other people. As they reconcile, Achilles accomplishes a dimension that appears to be tragic. If he does not go back to the war, this will make him a peculiar selfish person. He becomes a hero touched with tragedy because he goes back to the battle knowing that he will be killed in the battle. If he fails to return the body of hector to the Priam, he will face the rage of mindless vengeance under the wrath of Hektor’s corpse. He is extremely kind to Priam and acknowledges his personal kinship with those who are defeated and dead. This makes him more of an existential hero and not just a tragic hero (Sisti 21). Since Achilles is aware of his kinship with the people that he murdered, the Iliad is heightening to a level where tragedy is existential. Such kinship recognition by Achilles continues throughout the book. Before murdering Lykaon, he utters the following words, "Come friend, you too must die." This suggests that Achilles views death as inevitable and he suggests that there is a kinship between himself, Patroklos and Lykaon. This kinship is further extended to the rest of the warriors who were killed or will be killed in the battle. This scenario of recognizing the dead is similar to the one in Meursault. In both cases, death is the bond that links the hero to humanity. Just like Achilles, Meursault is a person who has been estranged. Because he acknowledges that death is inevitable, this bonds him with the dead and all humanity. Works Cited Duggan, Timothy J. Hamlet. Prufrock Press Inc., 2008. Print Homère, Pope. The Iliad. Rivington, 1760. Print Shakespeare/Prescott. Hamlet Reference Quotes From Hamlet Book. Penguin books. 2005. Print Sisti Karin. The Iliad: Stories of the Trojan Wars. Hamlyn, 1985. Print Sophocles. The Theban Plays: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone. JHU Press, 2009. Print Read More