Comparison Of Shakespeare's Othello And Hamlet

William Shakespeare is an iconic man who created wonderful plays that no one in their right mind could compare to. Shakespeare wrote a total of thirty-seven plays and a hundred and fifty-four sonnets to entertain the world (Greenblatt). Although we do not know much about Shakespeare’s history, we do know about his plays. Othello and Hamlet are two well-known Shakespearean plays about vengeance, deception, and murder. In today’s society, it is not common to rely on these deviant behaviors when dealing with a tragedy. In the modern world today people deal with issues while wearing their heart on their sleeve, instead of dealing with issues in a barbarian matter like they did in the Elizabethan Age. This has inspired new generations to recreate

Iago is Othello’s ambitious friend who turns against him for promoting Michael Cassio to a personal lieutenant instead of him. Othello elopes with Desdemona without her father’s blessing, since they are so in love. Othello becomes jealous and suspicious of Desdemona and Cassio because Iago has been planting seeds in his head about Desdemona being unfaithful to him. He confides in Iago that he plans to poison Desdemona for an adulterous act. The two of them plan out the murder of innocent Desdemona, where Othello eventually smothers her to death. Emilia, Iago’s wife then tells Othello the truth about the scheming Iago did to ruin him. Othello wounds Iago, then kills himself. Iago kills Emilia for betraying him (Shakespeare, Crowther, 2003). In Othello, there are many themes to discuss, but race and marriage are two significant themes. Race is extremely a big deal in Othello because he was one of the first black heroes in English literature, along with him rising up to the power of a general. At the same time, Othello is also seen as an outcast because of his skin color. This opens him to all sorts of racism especially from Desdemona’s father who believes his daughter is under Othello’s spell because she could not possibly be in love with a man of a different skin color. Marriage also plays a huge part in Othello since it starts our right away with the elopement of

The modern way of telling Hamlet is one of my favorites. Disney’s The Lion King is almost the same story of Hamlet but, more kid friendly. When teaching Hamlet to students it can be a little hard for them to understand how heroic Hamlet is, but when you pair it with Disney’s The Lion King you can instantly see the connections. Students saw “that both Hamlet and Simba represent the mythical archetype of the exiled child whose role is to restore world order and who has [a] heroic task. Students [then] realize that they too are unique individuals on heroic journeys” (Gavin, 1996, p. 55). Hamlet and Simba are both visited by the ghost of their fathers. Gertrude (Hamlet’s mother) and Sarabi Simba’s mother) are both used by their husband’s brothers for the brother’s personal determinations (Gavin, 1996, p. 55). Scar and Claudius are both the younger brothers who are both willing to kill their brother to become king, and both Hamlet and Simba end up killing their uncles (Gavin, 1996, p. 56). Othello also has its own modern-day movie, O where the only real difference is that the characters are in high school. But, what is noteworthy is that O is marketed towards an older group, so mature high schoolers and adults can easily understand Shakespeare’s Othello without having to interpret what Shakespeare is saying in modern English. To me, the movie O is an easier way to teach young adults that love and control are not the