William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles' Oedipus the King

Hamlet by William Shakespeare and Oedipus the King by Sophocles are both tragic stories which contain many elements of which are similar and different. Although both Hamlet and Oedipus suffer from fate, Hamlet’s father is murdered by his brother Claudius, while Oedipus kills his own father. Both Hamlet and Oedipus have the opportunity to shun their fate, but the two men believe themselves to be the only individual who can resolve the predicament which they are faced with. The homeland of Hamlet and Oedipus, Denmark and Thebes, are both in a state of tumult. After Hamlet’s father’s death Denmark was presided by a new court, after Claudius, who in addition to murdering Hamlet’s father, became king by marrying his

Often the past will present answers to questions about the future as well as questions of the now, and in Oedipus Rex, Oedipus’ past plays an integral role in his pursuit of righting the wrongs that are affecting him in the present. In the play, Oedipus must identify who has killed Laius in order to exile them to solve the qualms of his people, and in a dialogue with Jocasta, who happens to be his wife as well as his mother, she reveals to him details of the death of Laius that seem far too familiar for his comfort (Sophocles 27). This revelation of information acts as a catalyst that forces Oedipus to make the connection between his past and what Jocasta is telling him. This realization that he may have been responsible for Laius’ death exposes him to the weight of the pursuit of justice sometimes hold for humans. Through this dialogue, Oedipus comes to fear that he is the culprit of the scandal that is plaguing the situation, thus putting him in the position of a criminal who will face the due punishment for the crime. This internal conflict that Oedipus experiences creates and

Oedipus, outraged at the accusation, denounces it as a plot of Creon to gain the throne. Jocasta appears just in time to avoid a battle between the two men. Seers, she assures Oedipus, are not infallible. To prove her point she cites the old prophecy that her son should kill his father and have children by his mother. She prevented its fulfillment, she confesses, by abandoning their infant son in the mountains. As for Laius, he had been killed by robber’s years later at the junction of three roads on the route to Delphi.

Hamlet is as much a story of emotional conflict, paranoia, and self-doubt as it is one of revenge and tragedy. The protagonist, Prince Hamlet of Denmark, is instructed by his slain father’s ghost to enact vengeance upon his uncle Claudius, whose treacherous murder of Hamlet’s father gave way to his rise to power. Overcome by anguish and obligation to avenge his father’s death, Hamlet ultimately commits a number of killings throughout the story. However, we are not to view the character Hamlet as a sick individual, but rather one who has been victimized by his own circumstances.

With his great knowledge and accomplishment establishing him as a man of insight and honor he is crowned King of Thebes. Oedipus, unwilling to hear or see truth, smites a blind man in the midst of his own ignorance and denial to reality. Teiresias, a blind prophet, is stood before Oedipus to reveal his visions about the identity of the murderer. “PAGE 11/40 TEIRESIAS thou hast not spared To twit me with my blindness--thou hast eyes, Yet see'st not in what misery thou art fallen, Nor where thou dwellest nor with whom for mate. Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know'st it not, And all unwitting art a double foe...” Teiresias reveals Oedipus' fate to him. He reveals that Oedipus doesn't know who his true parents are, and is living a doubly bad fate. Oedipus becomes engaged and accusatory of Teiresias at the thought of someone threatening his preconceived reality. “PAGE 10/40 OEDIPUS There is strength where there is truth, but not in you Oedipus. You don't possess this quality, for you are blind in your ears, mind, and eyes.” Oedipus even goes as far as to suggest that Teiresias murdered King Laius. “PAGE 10/40 OEDIPUS Thou methinks thou art he, I think that you are he who planned this crime, and he who even committed it too..” Oedipus, self righteous and pompous, believes that he can do no wrong. His ego is so big that he tears down and slanders

William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is a play illustrating a prince seeking revenge for his father tragic death. Hamlet, the prince, is left clueless about who has killed his father until some night watcher gives him some news about a ghost that looks like his dead father. Hamlet decides to go see the ghost for himself and is shocked with what the ghost has said to him. The murder of his father was not an accidental snake bite, but instead Hamlet’s father was the murdered by his uncle, Claudius, the new king of Denmark. Hamlet becomes angry at Claudius for killing his father and is also angry at his mother, Gertrude, for betraying his father and marrying Claudius. Hamlet begins to act insane because he wants to distract the people around him so he can avenge his father’s death.

Oedipus’ foolish decisions ultimately lead to his downfall in the play. Oedipus chooses to kill Laios. He chooses to marry Iocaste. He chooses to forcefully, and publicly, assume the mission of discovering the identity of Laios’ murderer saying ironically, “I say I take the son’s part, just as though I were his son, to press the fight for him and see it won,” (633). He proceeds on this mission and chooses to ignore the warnings of Creon, Iocaste, Teiresias, the messenger, the shepherd, and anyone who attempts to stand between him and the truth; and, he chooses to blind himself. In the end, Oedipus’ most foolish choice prevails throughout the play; the choice of illusion over reality ultimately costs him his life.

Through the course of the play Oedipus is the detective, the judge, and the jury. He investigates, decides a verdict, and carries out his own punishment. When Tiresias arrives at Thebes Oedipus questions him looking for answers. Tiresias is a blind man, who ironically can see the future and truths of people’s lives. It is Tiresias who is the first person to tell Oedipus that he has killed his own father. He tells Oedipus “you do not see the evil in which you live.” Oedipus doubts Tiresias’ ability to see the truths because of his physical blindness and states, “ You

In this case, Oedipus has a certain prophecy that he needs to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Doing so, he can break the curse on Thebes and he will not be shamed upon for being a king and letting his city fall. Oedipus was trying to avoid the absurd prophecy by leaving his adopted parents and living a life on his own. But, on his journey, Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. Oedipus believed they were strangers until Creon explained everything. The love of his life Jocasta, was revealed to be his birth mother. He had fulfilled his prophecy without intention. Jocasta could not take the stressful humiliation and life she had just taken on, so she committed suicide. When Jocasta's death occurred, Oedipus was filled with sorrow and decided he couldn't dare show go out in the world knowing what he just did. So Oedipus unpinned the golden brooches from the robe Jocasta was hanging in, and stabbed his eyes repeatedly while pleading “they will never see the crime I have committed or had done upon me! Dark eyes, now in the days to come look on forbidden faces, do not recognize those who those you long for.” On page 516 lines 192-196, this shows his unhappy fate from the hardships in life.

King Oedipus’ problem is that he is too arrogant. His arrogance is what causes him to be “blind”. Not knowing he was the killer of Laius made him blind. He was also blind to the fact that Jocasta, his wife, who actually his mom, and Laius was his dad. Although people kept dropping hints to him, but his ignorance and his overbearing attitude didn’t allow him to see the truth. For instance, a blind prophet named Tiresias tried to point out to Oedipus who the killer was, hoping he’d catch on. While having a conversation about the killer with the seer Tiresias, Oedipus states, “All right King, you mock my blindness…You think you know your parents, but you are blind to the fact that you are their worst enemy!” (Oedipus the King 46). Even though the blind prophet basically told him everything, his arrogance got in his way. Therefore, Oedipus is torn when he finds out about his parents.

One moment, Oedipus is brimming with hope; the next, he’s sure that he is the killer of his father, King Laius. Every time Oedipus thinks that it can’t possibly be him, evidence proves otherwise. His wife, Jocasta, attempts to prove his innocence but “lets out part of the dire secret by her allusion to the ‘triple crossroads’” (Haigh). By attempting to assist Oedipus, she

However, the driving force of Oedipus' fact-finding mission is an attempt to end the plague which racks his city. He does not realize the personal consequences his hunt will have for him, and his "loyalty to the truth" (23) is based on his ignorance of it. In fact, if we examine the events leading up to Oedipus' revelation, the incidental nature of his "quest for identity" becomes apparent. First, he summons Tiresias to name the killer, whom Oedipus does not at the time believe to be himself. Then a messenger arrives from Corinth, unbidden by the king, revealing that Oedipus is not truly Polybus' son. Finally, the shepherd reveals all of Oedipus' past, after having been called for the purpose of providing more information about Laius' death. The coincidental nature of these events is somewhat at odds with Dodds' vision of Oedipus as a sort of Greek private detective who relentlessly ferrets out clues in a self-destructive search for his parents. Oedipus is eager to find the truth, but the most pivotal witnesses for the true story of his birth either come to him of their own volition, or are convened by Oedipus in the hopes that they will tell him something entirely different. In the end, he resigns himself to the truth which would have been clear much earlier (as it was to Jocasta), had he

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous work of tragedy. Throughout the play the title character, Hamlet, tends to seek revenge for his father’s death. Shakespeare achieved his work in Hamlet through his brilliant depiction of the hero’s struggle with two opposing forces that hunt Hamlet throughout the play: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father’s murder. When Hamlet sets his mind to revenge his fathers’ death, he is faced with many challenges that delay him from committing murder to his uncle Claudius, who killed Hamlets’ father, the former king. During this delay, he harms others with his actions by acting irrationally, threatening Gertrude, his mother, and by killing Polonius which led into the madness and death of Ophelia.

Throughout the play Oedipus is given clues to his past and the fate that is to come, the moment that he gouges his eyes out shows these clues that he has missed. Jocasta says wildly, “In the name of heaven, don’t proceed! For your own life’s sake, stop! And I’ve been tortured long enough.” (59) This shows a moment of caution for Oedipus to not continue to seek the truth. The dramatic irony of this situation illuminates the horrors that are to come because of fate as well as Oedipus’ free will. Oedipus: “Laius was killed—I thought I caught the words—where three highways meet?” Jocasta: “So they said. That is how the story goes.” (41) Oedipus is first hearing the true story of the late king’s murder and seems to be beginning to realize that it was he who did the killing. Even though this could be his illuminating moment, Oedipus is unwilling to accept this fact and must hear

When demanded the answer as to who the murderer was,Tiresias told Oedipus that he, was the “defiler of this land,”(30).Essentially, Tiresias was telling Oedipus that he was the unclean that needed to be driven out of the land. Angered, outraged, and confused, Oedipus could not accept this truth of hearing he was the murderer, and further insulted the blind prophet.Similarly, Oedipus’s pride falsely led him to think that he could escape his fate that he was told about in the prophecy. While in Corinth, Oedipus went to a shrine of Apollo, where he was told a prophecy in which he would marry his mother, have unnatural children, and murder his father. “The oracle of Phoebus Apollo said that I/ Must kill my father, lie with my mother. /This drove me out of Corinth. I regret nothing - /I have married happily, raised a family, known the sweetness of power” (61). Oedipus believed that since he escaped his “parents” from Corinth, he escaped his fate and was free of murdering his father and marrying his mother. Because he did not believe in oracles nor know Laius was his father, he was certain at this point that he indeed was not king Laius’s murderer, despite Tiresias’s words. As the tragedy unfolded, it showed further evidence that he had fulfilled the prophecy. Oedipus’s pride, which was once seen as favorable to him, destroyed him in the end.