Comparison and Contrast
By Ankur Chauhan
Comparisons between plays can always be made; the question is, how useful are they? The core comparison that springs to mind between these two plays, Othello and Hamlet, is that these are both tragedies driven by character. That is to say, they all follow classically great men from great heights to terrible ends and deaths. Each man is in a situation where he is especially vulnerable. If these men swapped places, they might not have fallen so easily. As they fall, others fall with them, including those they love. When the great fail, entire sections of society fail.
William Shakespeare, in the play Hamlet, goes deep into the psychological afflictions of a man whose mother marries his uncle, who has murdered his father. The ghost of Hamlet’s father appears before Hamlet to tell him who his murderer is, and to make certain that Hamlet will avenge his death. However, Hamlet does not immediately seek revenge. His reason for his delay in seeking revenge is that he is waiting for an opportune moment to strike. However, Hamlet's stalling to seek revenge drives him almost insane. It should be pondered upon; what is the actual reason for Hamlet's delay in punishing his uncle. His tendency to reflect detains his ability to act, he does not come out of his thinking rather goes deeper into it and this is proven to be true by the action in the play. Hamlet spends almost all of his time thinking. A great deal of his narrative, sounds, more like speeches, as if he is speaking to himself, or his own mind. Many of these speeches are soliloquies, however, even when he is speaking to someone else, it sounds as if he is reflecting upon matters in his own mind.
As the play progresses, the reader or viewer of the play is begging Hamlet to kill his uncle already, to just stop thinking about it and just do it, but he does not. Every minute detail is continued to be analyzed by him, to the point of a