Oedipus and Hamlet Essay

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Pages: 6
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Efthimios Mariakakis
Professor Mihailovic
5-14-01

Though Shakespeares' Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus the King were written in two different eras, echoes of the latter can be found in the former. The common theme of Hamlet and Oedipus the King is regicide. Also, like in Oedipus the King, there is a direct relationship between the state of the state and the state of their kings. Furthermore, there is also a relationship between Oedipus' armed entrance into the bedroom in which Jocasta hanged herself, and Hamlet's confrontation of Gertrude in her bedroom. Both plays share the emphasis on a tragic irony in the chain of events that lead up to ritual of catharsis, but the plot of Hamlet makes a much more complicated character than …show more content…
In the first act, after he is conscious of the tormented ghost of his father walking on the ramparts, Hamlet goes to see for himself, and there he is convinced to avenge his father death by his father's ghost. "Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder (Act 1,Scene 5)." Hamlet's father is a symbol of his conscience and the corruption of regicide is laid at Hamlet's doorstep. Hamlet is guilty because he failed to right this wrong, and the tragic flaw that emerges in his character is that of indecision. As Hamlet lays the trap for the new King Claudius, he is procrastinating in order to solve his self-doubt, although he tells himself that wishes only to be certain that he is not imagining the figure of his father's ghost and the strange duty which he must perform. Although the king gives himself away at the performance of the play within a play; after watching the reenactment of his murder of King Hamlet he shouts,"Give me some light. Away!(Act 3, Scene 2)," Hamlet is still inconclusive, and winds up being sent away to England by the king and his mother and Hamlet's insanity, feigned or not, has served him well. As long as Claudius reigns, however, he has failed in his duty. Mariakakis 5 Although Hamlet has pledged it to his father's ghost, the mission of revenge is something he takes no
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