Oedipus Rex and Hamlet Analysis Essay Example

than other tragedies. Tragedy in literature is manifested on the things that happen on a character’s life in a story and play.

In the Oedipus play, Oedipus is seen as a tragic figure who has been doomed from birth. Oedipus had been told about his fate by an old blind prophet Tiresias. The information about his fate was that Oedipus would end up killing his father and sleeping with his mother. This made his parents decide to kill him but things turned out the other way round. After finding his way back to Thebes, Oedipus kills several men not knowing that one of them was his real father. He ends up marring his mother and having kids with her. Upon realization, his life becomes doomed as he requests to be banished by his brother in law Creon.

On the other hand, hamlet did not know that his life would turn out tragic. The whole life of Hamlet is characterised by tragedy. Hamlets father is killed by his uncle who is also the king’s brother. The main reason behind this was Claudius wish to get to the Queen Gertrude thus making him jealous and killing the king. Several reasons can be given as to why these two characters are considered to be tragic figures. Firstly, Oedipus fate was considered to arise from birth and exactly no one knew Hamlets fate at this time. Oedipus parents sent him off to be killed while hamlets father was killed by his brother Claudius (Sutton, 194). Oedipus ends up marrying his mother after killing his mother while Hamlets father was poisoned. Hamlet got gypped out of the throne while Oedipus rose to

the throne either place he went. Hamlet managed to find a lover outside his home but Oedipus ended up marrying his old mother. Both characters had so many bad happenings in their lives. At the end of the play, Hamlet dies but Oedipus lives to suffer throughout his life. Oedipus had thought of being better than anyone else in the society as opposed to the way Hamlet remained humble regardless of being wonderful and great.

Though Hamlet and Oedipus are two different people, the both live a tragic life. However, hamlet does not undergo much suffering as Oedipus did. This does not however make a difference. The two suffer relatively as Oedipus could have never became the king. On the other hand, Hamlet would have made the best king ever (Whitman-Raymond, 341) The two almost went through the same levels of suffering as Oedipus spend much of his life suffering though had been a king. The feelings that they went through remain hidden and buried in their hearts but however drama can reveal the tragic live scenarios that they went through as a result of their father’s death at their early stages of life.

Mourning in the play is connected to a sense of guilty and tragic life that both Oedipus rex and hamlet lived. Both plays depict an actual or implied crime. The tragic drama in this case expresses the will to supplement a dominant presence in its absence. This is far much expressed in the Oedipus rex where there is a replacement of a dead father with a present son. In most dramatic scenes, tragic drama is manifested on the funeral dances at the tomb

of a dead hero. This tragic drama has a focus on the mourning rituals and on the reappearance of the dead.

Works Cited

• Driver, Tom F. "The Uses of Time: The Oedipus Tyrannus and Macbeth." Exploring Shakespeare. Online Ed.  Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Centre - Bronze. Gale. Web. 16 Sept. 2008 <http://find.galenet.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.
• Rosefeldt, Paul. "From Strange Interlude to Strange Snow: A Study of the Absent Character in Drama." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology (Aug. 2002): 117(14). Academic OneFile. Gale. Web. 14 Sept. 2008 <http://find.galenet.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.
• Sutton, Brian. "Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Spielberg's Minority Report." The Explicator 63.4 (Summer 2005): 194(4). Academic OneFile. Gale. Web. 14 Sept. 2008  <http://find.galenet.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.
• Whitman-Raymond, Lee. "Defect and Recognition in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex." The American Journal of Psychoanalysis 65.4 (Dec. 2005): 341(12). Academic OneFile. Gale. Web. 14 Sept. 2008 <http://find.galenet.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS>.