Similarities and Dissimilarities Between ‘Hamlet’ and ‘King Lear’

[maqsood hasni]

Similarities and Dissimilarities Between ‘Hamlet’ and ‘King Lear’

Prof.NiamatAli

DepatmentofEnglish

Govt.IslamiaCollege,Kasur

Pakistan

Literature has ever used its weapons and strategy to explain the countless enigmas present in life. In his efforts, a littérateur looks at life from one side and then from an- other. Each literary artist does the same job though the devices and ways are separate. Human nature is the most complex knot that perhaps can never be opened completely. Every action has some cause and effect, but there is no permanent rule to govern the whole of human behaviour.

Robert.E.Knoll has the opinnion "To provide useful information is the function of the literature of knowledge; narration is part of the literature of power. The literature of power, of the imagination, moves the emotions; only incidentally instructs the mind."

William Shakespeare, the greatest dramatist, in English literature also and again. No doubt he has added a lot to the wisdom of the world. His plays and poetry are a praise -worthy heritage of man for all times. Literature is man in words and this thing applies to Shakespeare’s plays maximum. Each study of any of his plays, fills our minds with information about human nature, society and life. Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and Macbeth are regarded as his greatest tragedies. Among these four, the first two have superiority.

In the following passages, an effort is made to bring out the similarities and dissimilarities between the two greatest master pieces.

First of all, we glean out some similarities in Hamlet and King Lear.Both are very sensational tragedies; we are stunned when at the end the stage in strewn with corpses of very extraordinary persons. It becomes hard for us to bear the impact cast by the bloody scenes of the end. When extremely intellectual Hamlet and extremely gracious King Lear breathe their last, we are taken aback. In the play Hamlet, King Hamlet dies before the beginning, Polonius is slain unknowing by Prince Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are beheaded in England as the report says, Ophelia drowns in the stream, Laertes takes the revenge of his father’s murder, Hamlet takes the revenge of his father’s murder, Gertrude drinks poison and gives up her ghost. In this way tragic effect goes on becoming stronger with the passage of time.

in the play King Lear,

The death of Goneril and Regan is suggested thus:

Alb. Who dead? Speak,man.

Gent, Your lady, sir , your lady: and her sister.

By her is poisoned; she confesses it.

Alb. In the duel between Edgar and Edmund, Edmund is defeated to death:

The Gods defend her!

Bear him hence a while.

(Edmund is borne off)

Cordelia is hanged and King Lear dies of the grief:

Lear. And my poor fool is hanged! No ,no,no life!

Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there! (Dies)

Kent is also not willing to live in this world without King Lear:

Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;

My master calls me, I must not say no.

Similarly in Hamlet we find a number of deaths that make the whole atmosphere more than gloomy. Horatio points to two deaths in these words:

Hor. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to it.

Polonius is slain by chance by Hamlet:

Pol. (behind) O, I am slain.

Ophelia announces her father’sdeath and her own in these words:

Ophelia. And will a not come again?

And will a not come again?

No, no , he is dead ,

Go to thy death- bed

He never will come again.

His beard was as white a snow,

All flaxen was his poll.

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan.

God a mercy on his soul.

And of all Christian souls. God buy you.

Gertrude’s last words are:

Queen: No, no, the drink, the drink ! O my dear Hamlet!

The drink!the drink!I am poison’d. (Dies)

King Claudius dies thus:

Hamlet: Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned done,

Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?

Follow my mother. (King Dies)

Laertes

Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,

Nor thine on me. (Dies)

Hamlet So tell me, with the , occurrents more and less

While have solicited – the rest silence. (Dies)

Both the tragedies, Hamlet and King Lear, revolve around kings, princes, princesses, courtiers. In Hamlet, Claudius, though illegal, is the king ;Hamlet is the prince, Polonius is the courtier, Leartes and Opelia are the issue of Polonius, Gertrude is the Queen. Hamlet is to take revenge of his father King Hamlet from his uncle Claudius who is the King now. Polonius is slain by Hamlet by chance. Laertes comes back to take the revenge of his father from Hamlet. Ophilia grows mad and drowns in the stream and dies. Hamlet loves Opeilia more than forty thousand brothers. Laertes wounds Hamlet illegally; Hamlet wounds Claudius to death; Gertrude drinks a poisoned cup thus the tragedy is completed.

In King Lear, Lear is the king; Goneril ,Regan and Cordelia are his daughters or princesses; Kent is his courtier; Gloucester is the governor of a state; Edgar and Edmund are his sons. King Lear divides his state between his three daughters. Goneril and Regan deceive him with their flattery, but Cordelia remains truthful. King Lear gets angry with her and utters

Nothing comes out of nothing

Thus she is dishonored, but the prince

Of France marries her and takes her to France. The two daughters Goneril and Regan treat King Lear badly. Edmund makes illegal relations with both of them. King Lear becomes nearly mad. Cordelia takes him to France and gives her treatment. In the end war breaks out between England and Francex. That is won by England, Cordelia is hanged. Goneril and Regan poison each other, King Lear, Edmund and Kent also die. Thus this story is also the story of palaces, King and war.

The themes of both the plays are ‘state’ and ‘sex’. In Hamlet, Claudius wants to rule. the state and enjoy sex with Gertrude. Gertrude also enjoy sex with her brother-in-law that is religiously an incest. And this mentality is the base of the whole action in the play. For this purpose King Hamlet is killed that is the beginning of the play. For this purpose prince Hamlet is sent to England to be killed there, that is the middle of the play. And for this very purpose, a duel is arranged between Leartes and Hamlet that is the end. Thus ‘state’ and ‘sex’ can be safely called the themes of the play Hamlet.

In King Lear, Goneril and Regan get the state with flattery and later on develop illegal sexual relations with Edmund, who himself is the illegal son of Gloucester. For the enjoyment of these two senses, Goneril and Regan fight a war against. France and then poison each other. Thus play becomes a sermon against the greed of state and sex.

Along with main plots and themes both the plays have also sub-plots and sub-themes. In Hamlet there is the sub-plot of ‘play within play’Hamlet- Ophelia love affair, journey to England and Laertes journey to france. Similarly along with main themes of sex and state, there are sub-themes of revenge as the main theme.) , love, journey, friendship, death, treachery etc. With the combination of all these plots , sub-plots, themes and sub- themes, the play becomes a unique collection of a variety of thoughts and feelings

In King Lear, there are also sub-plots like Edgar-Edmund sub-plots and also sub themes like treachery,selfishness, faithfulness, truth, war.

Thus the play becomes a forest of thoughts.

Both the heroes Hamlet and King Lear have tragic flaw or hamartia. Hamlet’s tragic flaw is over-thinking and King Lear thinking after action( thus both of them suffer from their flaws).

Hamlet is often lost in philosophies:

The times is out of joint, O cursed spite

That ever I was born to set it right

He ponders over the world thus:

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

He believes in fate:

A divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.

Similarly King Lear is an old person but he fails to understand the universal principle that might is right. He in the beginning, expresses his heart thus:

….. know that we have divided in three our kingdom; and our fast- intent to shake all cares and business from our age, conferring them on younger strengths. And when he comes to know the practical fat, he utters:

And when I have stol’n upon these son-in- laws

Then kill, kill, kill, kill,kill, laws,

Both the play have comic relief

In Hamlet the Grave Diggers’ scene serves the purpose. When Hamlet returns from the shore, he finds a grave being dug.

He has a talk with the grave-digger and his companion:

Hamlet ... whose grave’s

This sirrah?

Grave: Mine, Sir.

(Sings) O a pit of clay for to be made---

Ham. I think it be thine indeed, for thou lies in’t

Grave. You lie out on’t sir, and therefore its not yours.

For my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine.

Similarly, fool’s presence in the play, King Lear, creates comic relief. His remarks are replete with wisdom and humour:

Fool.(a) A fox, when one has caught her,

And such a daughter,

Should sure to the slaughter,

In my cap would buy a halter,

So the fool follows after

(b) Why to keep ones eyes of either side’s nose,that

What a man cannot smell out he may spy into

Thou should’ st o have been old till thou hast been wise

Madness is another common theme in the two plays. Though the mental software is very badly affected by the circumstances, yet they don’t loses their senses completely. Hamlet’s madness is very doubtful even for the characters. Claudius employs Rosencrantz andGuildenstern to know the secret of Hamlet’s heart but they fail. Polonius also makes unsuccessful effort. Even the queen and Claudius are not clear about it.

King . It shall be so,

Madness in grear ones must not go unwatched

In King Lear, the hero reaches the boundery of madness. An old man is crushed by the young storms. His mental software is more badly affected than that of Hamlet. He really requires treatment for recovery. He himself utters:

Lear: O! let me not be mad, not mad, sweat heaven

Keep me in temper; I would not be mad

But the fool defines a mad person thus:

Fool: He is mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a

horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.

In the bulk of similarities, there are also some points of dissimilarities in the two plays.

In Hamlet, the hero Hamlet is a young man with all the potential of youth in his body.

Literature

William Henry Hudson

Publisher

Hudson London

Every man belongs to this race and age, and no matter now marked his personality, the spirit of his race and age finds expression through him.

He is surrounded by old and experienced persons like Claudius, Polonius, Gertrude. Some young characters of his age are also there but all of them hypocrites and insincere except Horatio who behaves as a faithful friend.

Hamlet often fails to understand the games played by others. But in the nick of time, he comes to know the facts and acts accordingly. And he has to utter:

How all occasions do inform against me?

And for him the time is out of joint

And he cannot set it right.

In King Lear an aged ,grey haired man is fighting against young forces of man and nature. King Lear’s daughters Goneril and Ragan, and Edmund have manipulated against him to bring about a disaster.

The old man fights against his nature. His vast kingdom becomes a prison for him.

The forest becomes his palace to held his court there with the fool and Edgar. Though being old, he fails to understand the nature of his daughters.

Kent and Edgar give him a support but it is useless to cry over spilt milk.

There is internal storm in Hamlet but there is external storm in King Lear.

In the maddening storm of thoughts, Hamlet finds it hard to choose his way of action. And in the storm of the forest King Lear’s mind loses its grip over senses. Gertrude describers Hamlet’s action thus:

Queen: Mad as the sea and wind when both contend

Which is the mightier.

King Lear describes the storm:

Lear: Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage blow!

Your cataracts and hurricanes spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples drownd the cocks!

 

The characters of Ophelia and Cordelia also provide us with the stuff of contrast.

between the two tragedies. Ophelia is a young damsel just like a puppet in the hands of her father. She becomes a cat’s paw for Polonius against her lover Hamlet. But Cordelia is a complete contrast. She turns against her father for truth. She is not ready to flatter her father insincerely. She is a symbol of truth, loyalty and balance, while Ophelia has only the delicacy of body and heart. She is stark blind towards Hamlet and is not affected even the least when he is in the getup of a mad person. But she turns mad when her father is killed by Hamlet. She seems be to a symbol of Electra-complex. In one sense Ophelia commits suicide but Cordelia is hanged. Polonius dies before Ophelia but king Lear dies after cordelia’s death. Ophelia obeys two male characters, Polonius and Laertes while Cordelia fights against two sisters , Goneril and Regan. Thus two opposite natures are presented before us.

Hamlet is dethroned by force and fraud while King Lear willingly abdicates from his seat and divides it into parts. Hamlet is robbed by his clever uncle Claudius while King Lear himself bestows his state on others. Hamlet is appointed by the Ghost to take the revenge while King Lear is helpless against circumstances. Aldous Huxley says:

"Changes in external circumstances are, of curse, accompanied by

changes in internal circumstances."

King Lear has simple and practical sense of language while Hamlet has a difficult and intellectual sense of language. It is requires a greater force of mind to reach the depth of meanings while in King Lear language seems to be very facile.

In Hamlet supernatural elements have been presented as common characters while in King Lear there is nothing like this. In Hamlet, the Ghost becomes the motivator whereas in King Lear Goneril’s and Regan’s behavior becomes the motivater of the whole action.

In Hamlet Laertes takes revenge from Hamlet and Hamlet takes revenge from Claudius. But King Lear fails to take his revenge. Edgar takes revenge from Edmund but nature takes revenge from Goneril and Regan.

Hamlet seems to be wiser and more philosophic than King Lear, and King Lear seems to be more active and energetic than Hamlet. What a contrast!

The sum and substance of the above discussion leads us to the conclusion that both the greatest tragedies have some similar and some dissimilar aspects. Perhaps the human nature is so complex and vast that it cannot be confined to some limits. It is also a mixture of so many passions, thoughts, ideas, motives, etc. Both the plays put us into the wilderness of bewilderment where nothing is certain. Life has been obscure and it will ever remain the same. In both the plays curtains are drawn leaving the audience to ponder and ponder and ponder.

Robert.E.Knoll Contrasts

Harcourt, Brace and Company New York

William Henry Hudson An Outline History of English Literature

Hudson London.

Aldous Huxley The Olive Tree

Oxford University Press (1947)