莎士比亞期末報告

Compare the Murderer and Usurper in thePlay of Hamlet and Macbeth.

We’velearned four Shakespeare’s plays in this semester—two of them are comedy, whilethe other two are tragedies.  And bothtragedies have a plot of killing of the king and the usurper of the murderer:in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince ofDenmark, is the king’s brother, Claudius, and in The Tragedy of Macbeth is the protagonist Macbeth himself.  As a result, this essay is written tocontrast Claudius and Macbeth.  First,discuss their similarities and provide the rationale of my comparison. Then,finding how are their different that lead to audience totally differentfeedback and response.

Similarities between Claudius andMacbeth

I concluded somesimilarities between Claudius and Macbeth. First of all, they did actually the same thing in the play.  They murdered the respected king and becomethe king themselves.  And the playactually resulted from their evil act. Second, despite their evil act, both characters somehow possess somenatural authority and positive optimistic when first appear in the play.  Macbeth, called “brave Macbeth” by captainand “Noble Macbeth” by King Duncan in I.2, succeed in the battlefield and ishighly praised and rewarded by the king. Claudius shows his talented diplomatic skill in handling the issue of Fortinbras.

Third, theirmurders are driven by ambition.  And theyactually use other’s power to help them. Macbeth find two killer to kill Banquo and Claudius persuade Laertes tokill Hamlet after find that his trick of using Britain diplomacy fails.  Both of them persuade the murderer to helpthem, so that they may not be solely responsible for the victim’s death.  Then, the lady they love play very importantrole and motive of their murderer act. Macbeth is threatened by Lady Macbeth through sexual taunting and the terribleforce of her determination.  And Claudiusmentioned that “my queen” is all a very important factor of his usurper inIII.3 “My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen”.

In the end, bothof them have strong will.  They refuse togive up, refuse of repent,and, refuse to give up his winning.  As aresult, while Claudius has a chance of repentance because of the override of theirconscience, he refuses.  From Macbeth’ssoliloquy, we can see he is fully aware of his evil deed; however, hecontinues. And because of their identity as a king, the immoral act resulted inpublic fall in the nation, while to the characters themselves, lead to the gapand isolation with people around them.  Claudiuscouldn’t reveal the scheme to people, even to his beloved the queen.  Macbeth reveal less and less to his wife, andends up betrayed by his soldier.  Thiscan be shown through Macbeth’s soliloquy before his death: “My way of life/ isfall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf,/ And that which should accompany oldage,/ As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,/ I must not look to have,but, in their stead,/ Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath/ Whichthe poor heart would fain deny and dare not. (5.3. 24-30).” 

Differences between Claudius and Macbeth

Although havingall these background, plots, and the “poet-justice” ending, Shakespeare, theplay writer, somehow has the magic power to make Claudius a villain and Macbetha tragic hero.  And how can thishappen?  To answer this question, weshould trace back to the setting of the play, where Claudius is the target ofthe protagonist’s revenge and Macbeth is the protagonist himself.  Interestingly, Booth argues that to bedefined a tragedy, the play should left the audience feel pity for the tragichero.  And this should be achievedthrough a two-way-folded story line: on one side, the audience should noticethe increasing “fall” of the character; and on the other hand, should keep theaudience sympathize with the character. And this is the result that although Macbeth keeps on sinning with thehardened heart, the play keep showing the torture Macbeth and Lady Macbeth wentthrough simultaneously; so that the audience will feel that they are alreadypunished—their anguish, therefore, will not overcome their pity.

In comparison,the play Hamlet emphasizes on Hamlet’shesitation and conscience, Macbethemphasize on the gradual and well-aware “fall” of the protagonist Macbeth.  As a result, the audience may have strongersympathy with Macbeth because we go through all the struggles this once sonoble man.

Conclusion

From mydiscussion, I wish to point out that although Claudius and Macbeth have so manysimilarities, it still leads to different audience feedback which Kurmaresanmay express it as the “as poles apart from each other”.  And the reason lies in the different settingemphasis that leads to audience sympathy to the protagonist—Macbeth.

Reference:

Greenblatt,Stephen, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, Katharine Eisman Maus, eds. The Norton Shakespeare: Based On The OxfordEdition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.

Booth , Wayne C..Macbeth as Tragic Hero. TheJournal of General Education 6.1 (1951):17-25.

Cunningham, D..Macbeth: The Tragedy of the Hardened Heart.Shakespeare Quarterly 14.1 (1963): 39-47

Hartwig, J..Macbeth, the Murderers, and the Diminishing Parallel. The Yearbook of English Studies 3 (1973): 39-43.

Kurmaresan, P.Claudius and Macbeth: A Comparison between a Villain and a Tragic- Hero.  Journal of Literature, Culture andMedia Studies3 (2011): 162-170.