Throughout the history of literary criticism, a lot has been said about Shakespeare’s poetic wonders, his melancholy prince Hamlet and the power-mad Macbeth. They are like two sides of a coin, the good and the bad, both tainted in their tragic endeavor. As it is the case with most of his tragedies, the protagonists carry within themselves a tragic flaw, tainting them as Byronic heroes who despite their utter devotion to their cause, can never truly come out as winners. Despite the fact that one is the protagonist and the other antagonist of the play, their similarities are ubiquitous: they both possess a tragic flaw, fueled by their own or someone else’s thirst for power, they are both driven by powerful female forces that make them play these deadly agonistic games, they both endeavor to challenge authority in their ineffectual challenge of the social order.
Some critics believe that the tragic flaw of Shakespeare’s tragedy protagonists is not their own, but rather in the world they inhabit, the political state, the social order and similar (Smith 64). Thus, both Hamlet and Macbeth possess the tinge of a tragic flaw that renders their actions futile, despite all the efforts they put into them, because the social order has aligned itself against them, not allowing them to act successfully. Hamlet himself is guilty of thinking his actions wrought with his fatal flaw, indecisiveness:
“How stand I then,
That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? (Shakespeare IV.iv.55).
The fact of the matter is that the young prince did act, but rather unsuccessfully and it is this lack of success in acting upon his revenge that is making this young intellectual, sorrowing for the death of his father, curse his own indecisiveness in not being able to keep the promise he gave to his ghost (Davis 629).
On the other hand, Macbeth’s tragic flaw could be considered too much acting upon his hidden desires. Once fueled by the witches’ prophecy and his wife’s urging, Macbeth’s ambition slowly, but surely, commences to degenerate into a gory state of murder. Still, his ambition is initially not so strong as to contemplate such a heinous crime as killing the king. But, under the watchful eye of his wife, Lady Macbeth, the murderous interlude of Macbeth’s tyranny takes place and grows in power and size. Yet, the name of king in regard to Macbeth’s reign of terror will be mentioned in the play only five times, proving the fact that at the very end, he remains a tyrant whose vicious actions have made him unworthy of being given this title. Thus, both protagonists’ tragic flaw admits a fearsome agency which dislocates their actions, be they righteous or not.
In both dramas, the protagonists are thrown into a maelstrom of tragic events as a result of other people’s thirst for power. Neither Hamlet nor Macbeth is perceived as ubiquitously ambitious and power-thirsty, but as the play progresses, their goals and desires change, unfortunately for the worse. Ambition and revenge grow inside their minds, until the very end, when they start resembling madmen. Hamlet’s predicament comes after his uncle’s violent deed of attaining the throne, by killing Hamlet’s father and marrying his mother, Queen Gertrude. His blind thirst for power is emotionless, because he does not reconsider his wicked actions even though they mean having to kill his own flesh and blood. Hamlet on the other hand, is not fueled by any such desire for power, but rather a righteous need for the restoration of justice and morality in the land. He endeavors to keep the promise his made to the ghost of his father who came to plead for revenge for his untimely death, by telling his son “wet thy almost blunted purpose” (Shakespeare III.iv.112).
Similarly, at the beginning of the play, Macbeth does not have it in himself to become a cold-blooded murderer. It is his wife who instills in him this plan and urges him to acknowledge the prophecy and act upon it, by killing King Duncan. Without her and her yearning for power, Macbeth would have neglected the prophecy and would have continued his life in the same manner as before. In the end, the Macbeths’ sinfully wicked ways turn out to be the death of them, while Hamlet is condemned to pay for other people’s thirst for power.
Finally, the female element without which no tragedy would be complete is most certainly the one with much effect on the protagonists. While Macbeth’s wife pushes Macbeth towards a bloody scheme, Hamlet falls under the spell of thinking all women whores, neglecting the only positive female influence that might have changed him for the better. Thus, under the thumb of wicked women, both Hamlet and Macbeth cannot restrain themselves from doing the women’s bidding. Hamlet’s emotional weakness is the beautiful Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius who unfortunately, becomes a victim of Hamlet’s mad killing spree. Instilled by her father, Ophelia chooses not to see Hamlet romantically anymore, and his ill heart pours out words of hate for not only her but all women, due to the fact that his mother’s sacrilegious marriage to his father’s murderer is more than enough to deem her a whore in his eyes.
This shows the extent to which the play is dominated by the Mother (Lacan 12). His heart being heavy under such a burden, he cannot possibly have any loving emotions towards a member of the female sex, in which he has been disappointed to such a great extent. Thus, Gertrude’s wickedly swift marriage serves as much of an instigation to revenge the death of his father as the ghost’s request itself, and in this sense, the female identities of both plays bear the same role. They push the male protagonists forward, in their own weak inability to act upon their thoughts. Lady Macbeth cannot commit murder herself, but she can tell her husband how to do it. Despite the fact that Gertrude had nothing to do with her husband’s death and that poor Ophelia is but a victim of circumstance, Hamlet still sees their influence as immoral and it pushes him forward to his final act of killing the usurper of his father’s throne. Thus, both protagonists’ female counterparts are urging them to go forward with their scheme.
The harmonies of the worlds of these two plays have been disrupted, with the exception that the readers find the two protagonists on two conflicting sides of the sword. They seem to be the ying to each other’s yang, whilst their ability to be compared is striking, despite the fact that one is the protagonist and the other the antagonist of the play. These innately flawed characters are urged on this deadly quest for power or resolution, their minds fueled by their female counterparts, until both plays reach a tragic end.
Works Cited:
Lacan, Jacques. “Desire and the Interpretation of Desire in Hamlet.” Yale French Studies. Literature and Psychoanalysis. The Question of Reading: Otherwise. 55-56 (1977): pp. 11-52. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992. Print.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. 1st ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.
Smith, Emma. Shakespeare’s tragedies. Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. Print.
Davis, Tenney L. “The Sanity of Hamlet.” The Journal of Philosophy 18, no. 23 (November 10, 1921): 629–634. Print.
