The Father and Son Relationships in Hamlet - Essay Example

Just like the relationship shared between a mother and daughter is considered to be divine, so also is the relationship shared between a father and son. Some relationships we come across in our daily lives are sweet but unfortunately, certain relationships are not so lucky and tend to turn out unfortunate and bitter. In this essay, we are going to analyze the relationship between father and son in the stories – “Hamlet”, “Oedipus and the King” and “Death of a Salesman.”

William Shakespeare’s spectacular story ‘Hamlet’ encompasses themes based on worldly issues such as justice, morality, and retribution. The most important scene in the play is the supernatural confrontation of Hamlet with the ghost of his dead father. It is this scene that erupts a volcano of tragic and deepest feelings and emotions in Hamlet. We are enlightened on the character Hamlet and the relationship he shared with his beloved father.

In the conversation that takes place between the father and son, the deep and intense admiration that Hamlet has for his father is clearly exposed, in addition to the differences they encountered between them. These experiences accounted for Hamlet's inability to neither act in a decisive manner nor find real or concrete moral truths in his world.

Therefore, Hamlet continuously faces conflict on the issues of death and an afterlife, issues of morality, and troubled retribution that keeps haunting him throughout.

In ‘Oedipus and the King’ Oedipus was cursed due to the sin of his father and from birth, it was prophesized that he would kill his father and would marry his mother. The Oracle had said – Lord of Thebes, do not sow a furrow of children against the will of the gods; for if you beget a son, that child will kill you, and all your house shall wade through blood." (The Oracle of Delphi to Laius 1. Euripides, Phoenician Women 20).To avoid such a catastrophe Oedipus leaves Corinth never to return again. But unfortunately, Oedipus had accidentally killed his father after he confronted him on a narrow road and refused to let him pass, and following the solving of the riddle of the Sphinx was crowned the king of Thebes and unwittingly got married to his mother.

In ‘Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller, the author brings out the agony and angst of the middle-class in America who were trapped in a world of illusion. Everyone dreamed of the American Dream and wished to achieve it at any cost. The protagonist of Miller’s story is Willy Loman, a man in his sixties who seemed to be chasing the American Dream. Though he worked hard, he gradually understood that the dream was nothing but an illusion which he had been breathlessly pursuing all along. The father-son relationship between Willy and his two sons Biff and Happy was a part of this illusionary dream. His Salesman job taught him to be a smooth talker with a glib tongue and he instilled these same poor values in his children. The elder son Biff came to grow up to be a useless person who never stuck long to any job as he was a very irresponsible person who managed to hide the truth from Willy. The younger son Happy turned all his attention to making money and did not care in the least about the other suffering members of his family. Even at the grave of his father, he promised to pursue the goal of making money. Therefore, in this story of “Death of a Salesman,” we find that the father did not share a good and truthful rapport with his sons.