Theme sharing in Hamlet and Macbeth
In William Shakespeare's two most popular works of art, Macbeth and Hamlet, several parts of the plays are similar. These two plays can be compared easily because Shakespeare used the same formula for each of his tragedies. The tragedies use supernatural incidents to intrigue the reader's interest and included in the play is a hero who has a tragic flaw, which eventually causes him to make a fatal mistake. Throughout both of these plays, Shakespeare uses the leit motif of poison, death, ambition, and appearances can be deceiving. We are first introduced to poison in Hamlet in the very beginning of the play. King Hamlet is killed when his brother, Claudius, pours poison into his ear while King Hamlet is asleep in his apple orchard. This causes a fast but excruciating death. Poison is later brought back into the play when Claudius will try to slip a poison into Hamlet's drink of wine. His plan backfires when his wife takes a drink from the cup instead of Hamlet and the poison eventually kills her. During the time of that incident, Hamlet is fencing with Laertes. Laertes sees that Hamlet if far beyond him in his fencing ability, so he decides to wipe the blade of his sword with a cloth soaked in poison. As the fight
When her husband returns and they learn of the visit from the king, Lady Macbeth thinks this is the perfect time to kill the king so that she and her husband can rule the land. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern lied to Hamlet telling him about England. The illusions were obviously not there, but they helped each character go insane. When he talked in front of everyone he gave a great speech about how much he missed his brother and how great he was, but in reality in all of these situations, he was hiding behind a mask of falseness and was appearing to be a good guy. Throughout the play Polonius pretends to care for people while he lies, manipulates people, and eavesdrops on people during their conversation. Come to my woman breasts, and take my milk for gall. After Macbeth killed the king, he would see spirit like daggers appear before him, while his wife would see blood stained permanently on her hands. Ophelia escapes the poison when she takes her own life by drowning herself. He instantly became infatuated with what would happen to him. He wrote a letter to his wife about the meeting with the witches and explained their prophecies to her. Although in Shakespeare time, ambition was seen as wrong, he was still able to fit it into his plays. Also his wife had the same goals in mind and she also perished in her greed.
Common topics in this essay:
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Laertes Hamlet,
Rosencrantz Guildenstern,
King Hamlet,
Macbeth Hamlet,
Unbeknownst Macbeth,
Hamlet Gertrude,
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Ophelia Laertes,
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leit motif poison,
actual poison,
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