The Libation Bearers and Hamlet - 1308 Words

The Libation Bearers and Hamlet Many of Shakespeare’s plays draw from classical Greek themes, plot and metaphors. The tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and Homer have themes like royal murders, assassinations by near relatives, the supernatural, ghostly visits, and vengeful spirits of the dead- themes which reappear in Shakespeare’s tragedies with a difference. Shakespeare’s tragic hero Hamlet and Aeschylus’s Orestes have a great deal in common. Both the plays are set in a time when the society is going through transition. In Orestia gods are changing. Furies turn into Eumenides or the Pacified Ones. Social and political norms are changing. The old laws of revenge and retribution have to be re-established. Similarly Hamlet’s†¦show more content†¦He decides to kill Claudius immediately after the play he directs to affirm his suspicions. He would have done so had he not found Claudius knelt before the cross. He cares for the soul and cannot send his father’s murderer to heaven by killing him while he is praying to Christ. He gives vent to his mournful passions by shunning his responsibility. He grieves, mourns and rages every time he lets his step father go and invents long philosophical, religious and ethical reasons why it was not the right time to kill him. That’s why as the sense of duty towards his dead father grows, fed partly by his father’s ghost, partly by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he becomes abnormally fierce and frustrated. However he is not delaying Claudius’s murder because of the madness which is fake as Eliot calls it a simple ruse, and to the end, we may assume, understood as a ruse to the audience. He defers the action because of too much idealization, pondering and lack of planning till most of his friends are dead. Whereas Orestes’ delay is not because of any emotional instability or late planning. Right in the beginning, on his father’s tomb, with his sister Electra, he vows vengeance. He kills Aegisthius and is deferred for a time from killing Clytemnestra due to failure of plan. None of the women in Shakespeare’s Hamlet are comparable with women in Aeschylus’s The Libation Bearers. Ophelia is no accomplice or support toShow MoreRelatedThe Libation Bearers and Hamlet1302 Words   |  6 PagesThe Libation Bearers and Hamlet Many of Shakespeare’s plays draw from classical Greek themes, plot and metaphors. The tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and Homer have themes like royal murders, assassinations by near relatives, the supernatural, ghostly visits, and vengeful spirits of the dead- themes which reappear in Shakespeare’s tragedies with a difference. Shakespeare’s tragic hero Hamlet and Aeschylus’s Orestes have a great deal in common. Both the plays are set in a time whenRead MoreAristotle s The Tragic Hero1561 Words   |  7 Pagesdetestable murderer that he must kill in order to avenge his father’s death. While confronting his mother, Orestes says â€Å"I want to butcher you†¦ Die! – go down with him forever! You love this man, the man you should have loved you hated.† (The Libation Bearers, 891-894) Clytaemnestra murders Agamemnon believing that her action is justified and good. Orestes sees his mother’s action as evil, and murders Clytaemnestra believing that his action is justified and good. Indeed, these conflicting views are