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Lion King And Hamlet Comparison

Decent Essays

Did you know that the movie Lion King and the play Hamlet relate to each other? There are many ways that they similar, this includes the themes, plot, and even the characters. The main plot of the movie and the play is about a prince’s father who is killed by his uncle and is exiled from his home, but later returns and reclaims his throne. During the movie, some would notice that the character, Scar is similar to Claudius in the play. This is true because they both want to achieve victory by murdering their brother and later becoming king. However, they don’t kill the king in the same way.

One way they are similar is that they both want to murder their brother to achieve glory. However, the way they become king is different. Once Claudius murders his brother, he becomes king. Then he tries to get along with Hamlet so that Hamlet could forget about his father. Claudius murders the king by putting poison in his ear while sleeping. In the Lion King, Scar does the opposite, what he does it try to get along with Simba before his father’s death because he has a plan. His plan was to get Simba and put him in a stampede, while Mufasa would try to save him. Mufasa does save Simba, but Mufasa dies because he was on a cliff and was asking for Scar’s help. Scar didn’t help him, he just threw Mufasa off the cliff into the stampede. When Mufasa dies, Scar tells Simba that it was his fault for his father’s death, so Simba leaves his home and runs away.

This is another difference from the play and the movie. It’s how Claudius and Scar get rid of Hamlet and Simba. At first, Claudius wasn’t planning on removing Hamlet because of Gertrude. However, after Hamlet killed Polonius, thinking it was Claudius, Claudius decided that Hamlet should go to England. Claudius's plan was that once Hamlet arrived in England they would kill him. However, that didn’t exactly happen. Hamlet switched the letters that said to kill him and switched it with the one that he wrote, which said to kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Then he got onto a pirate ship that would return back to Denmark.

At the beginning of the movie, you can already tell that Scar has an attitude toward the king. This would show how he is and how he treats Simba throughout

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