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Essay Comparing Hamlet And The Handmaid's Tale

1511 Words7 Pages

Stop and Think About the Circumstances Hamlet and Offred, the protagonists in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare and the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, have many striking differences. For example, Hamlet has significantly more power and authority than Offred does; Hamlet is the prince of Denmark and part of the royal family, whereas Offred is a handmaid of Gilead and is forced into a lifestyle determined by those in power. It is clear that their living conditions were extremely different. However, Hamlet and Offred are also similar in some ways. Both of them are placed in circumstances that cause them to change their behaviour. Due to the events that occurred in their respective stories and resulting circumstances, they both became cautious and driven to act. Therefore, Hamlet and Offred’s behaviours were a function of their circumstances. The circumstances that Hamlet finds himself are his uncle murdering his father, his mother’s …show more content…

There was nobody that Hamlet could fully trust, with the exception of Horatio. In addition to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern spying on him for the king, Polonius, Claudius and Ophelia were all contributors to spying on Hamlet’s conversation with Ophelia. Also, Gertrude is disloyal to Hamlet’s father and may have had an affair with Claudius which makes her another character that Hamlet cannot trust. Horatio is the only person in the play that Hamlet trusts, the one who gives Hamlet the most companionship, and most importantly the only friend of Hamlet to help Hamlet. He understands Hamlet the most, believed that Hamlet’s madness is an act, and is the closest thing to true ‘family’ that Hamlet has if we consider the internal conflicts of the royal family. Therefore, Hamlet being unable to trust anyone besides Horatio made him cautious in the world filled with murder, affairs and

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1992 Words | 8 Pages

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