Elliot Mogosi

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This essay will compare the humanistic characteristics between Oedipus in Oedipus the
king by Sophocles and Hamlet in hamlet: Price of Denmark by Shakespeare as tragic
characters. Oedipus and Hamlet as tragic characters have flaws which classifies both
characters as tragic, from their confident arrogance, their delusional personalities, their
zeal to be the best in anything that they do, and also their passion to seek the truth
which ultimately contribute to their downfall. This essay will discuss elements of tragic
characters. Similarities and differences between Oedipus and Hamlet will be traced and
there will also be a discussion of the effect that these characters have on the reader.

The first requirement of being a tragic character according to Leech (1969:33) is that
tragic characters are fully themselves than men and women usually dare to be. Oedipus
and Hamlet meet the requirements of tragic characters because they are better off than
most people, these characters are more than what normal people are. Oedipus in
Sophocles kills his father and marries his mother while Hamlet in Shakespeare is out to
avenge his father’s death. From the beginning of the drama of Oedipus the king we are
introduced to Oedipus as a valiant, a man who is loved because of his brave nature we
can deduce this from “Oedipus, Oedipus, king, /solver of riddles, /slayer of monsters/
saviour of the people” Burgess (1972:9).

Hamlet is a different kind of a tragic character because unlike most tragic characters he
has no special ability except the fact that he is from a royal family and he was gifted in
using words intelligently this is for the reason that he could over-power most people with
his ability to reason intellectually. The reason for this is that Hamlet is the kind of person
who thinks of things before he initially takes action but even though he was not as brave
as Oedipus, when the ghost of his dead father told him that he was murdered by his
brother he agreed to avenge his father’s death.

A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark

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Is by a forgèd process of my death
Rankly abused; but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.
(I.ii: 35-40)

Hamlet did not agree to avenge his father’s death to the ghost but he vowed it to himself
“That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain; / At least I’m sure it may be so in
Denmark. / So uncle, there you are. Now to my Word: / it is ‘Adieu, adieu, remember
me.’/ I have sworn’t.” (I.v:106-112). His ability to think things through unlike other tragic
heroes is his tragic flaw because he cannot act immediately, he only realised that he
had to kill Claudius but only after he was poisoned. This is one of the differences that
the characters have as tragic characters because one characteristic that does not work
for Oedipus is his impulsive nature.

Oedipus unlike Hamlet does not think things through, his impulsiveness contributed to
his downfall. Oedipus was a loved man because of his valiance but his impulsive
worked against him, for he was a very arrogant man who only listened to himself, he
could not heed to people giving him advice we could deduce this when he insulted old
man Tiresias. When old man Tiresias told him that he was the cause of the plague that
was troubling the city he accused him of having something to do with death of King
Laius. His overconfidence prevented him from taking advices from other people; he
thought that he could make amends with the gods by changing his fate not knowing that
he had no possibility of changing it at all. His arrogance made him refuse that he was
wrong with anything. Oedipus’ arrogance is his tragic flaw but unlike hamlet he was not
aware of his tragic flaw because he was blind not to see things the way they were even
when he was told about his arrogance.

Listen to those words, King Oedipus.

Slow thoughts aim best. Anger hits nothing.

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Your quickness of temper is a fault
That has undone lesser men.
Burgess (1972:43)

As Oedipus was of nobel birth his pride made him blind and selfish because before we
went deeper in to the story we saw him in the eyes of other people but as the story
progressed we saw his dark side. For a man of his calibre when he was seeking for
truth he became a very ruthless man, he did not care about who gets hurt in the
process. When old man Tiresias refused to tell him the truth about the nature of the
perpetrator because it might bring harm to both of them, Oedipus refused to take any of
this so Tiresias in his rage told him that he is the reason why the city is in such a state
as he killed his father and slept with his mother. With this in mind we saw that Oedipus
does not care about other people; he has provoked less important men who have made
him whom he is. His pride blinded him from seeing things from different perspectives.
He did things not realising that he might hurt them even when he was not intending to.
Oedipus’ nobelity contributed to him being high headed for the when he met “Laius” he
acted on impulse and killed him and his men not knowing he was his father.

A man like the man you described. This herald,

In a surly way, a way unfitted to my rank
Or indeed to anyone’s, ordered me off the road.
I refused, then this venerable one in the carriage
Joined in with the surliness—he even offered
To thrust me bodily off the road. I became angry
And struck the coachman. The old man
Watched for his moment and, as he passed,

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Leaned out with a two-pronged goad and hit me
Full on the head. What could I do except
Seek payment in full for the pain and insult?
(Burgess, 1972:53)

This is one of differences that this two tragic heroes have, because unlike Oedipus
Hamlet thinks of things before he could embark on anything that could be have drastic
repercussions. We could deduce from the soliloque’s, in which he expresses his
feelings of what he thinks of the situation. From the first time the ghost told him about
his supposed murder, he seeked the truth. Through the development of his character
we saw that Hamlet developed the ability to reason and act diligently as he waited for
the right moment t to avenge old Hamlet’s death. The third soliloquy shows Hamlet’
intense struggle of whether to kill Claudius or to wait for the right moment to do so “to
be, or not to be, that is the question-/ whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ the slings
and arrows of outrageous fortune, / and by opposing end them” (III.i.56-60). In this
soliloquy Hamlet expresses his view about idling around by thinking about completing
his mission, he realises that he thinks too much, he criticises himself too much because
of the fact that he just cannot up and commit murder. Even though hamlet realises that
this is his tragic flaw he kept on thinking about killing Claudius.

Through his quest for truth we saw that Hamlet is not as ruthless as Oedipus, he only
wanted to kill Claudius when he had the whole truth of whether he really killed old
Hamlet or not. One thing they had in common was that no matter how much this two
tragic character tried to run away from their fate it was there and they had no options in
order to change them. Oedipus tried to run away from his while Hamlet idled in
completing his. Both characters affected readers in such a way that even if the reader
knows that it is their fate they had no way of running away from it.

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In conclusion both of nobel birth and they have flaws which tragically contributed to their
downfall. Oedipus and hamlet in both dramas are faced with forces which are greater
than them; both characters have to deal with things which could not be thought as
existing in the real world. Oedipus as a tragic character in the drama by Sophocles and
Hamlet by Shakespeare is faced with the dilemma of killing his uncle and Oedipus his
unknown parentage, which contributes a lot to the story because in both dramatic
tragedies the only people that know how to solve their mysteries where the tragic
characters.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LEECH, C. 1969. The critical idiom: Tragedy. New York: Methuem

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SHAKESPEARE, W. 1985. Hamlet: prince of Denmark. Philip Edwards (eds). New York:
Cambridge

SOPHOCLES. 1972. Oiedipus the king. Translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess.
Minnepolis: university of Minnesota Press