Hamlet And Titus Andronicus Essay

Probably one of the most famous Shakespeare plays ever written, Hamlet is very obviously a revenge play. Focusing on a son’s quest for revenge per his father’s request, it can be compared to an earlier work also by Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus. The two plays fit under the category of a revenge tragedy because of their plots; each storyline is driven entirely by some character’s need for revenge, Hamlet and his father, Laeartes and his own father, Young Fortinbras for Old Fortinbras in Hamlet, and Tamora against Titus and Titus against Tamora in Titus Andronicus. By the end of each play, most characters are dead, giving similarity to each of them and placing them in the category of a “revenge tragedy.”

Though Hamlet begins several hundred

Here he declares that he is not crazy but simply acting crazy and that he knows exactly what he is doing. Titus, in Titus Andronicus, seems to fall crazy after the death of his sons and rape of his daughter. However, both of these plays seem to view madness as some sort of strategic way to find revenge. Hamlet feigns his craziness so people will not suspect his plans to kill the king, and Titus plans his insanity so he will be able to take Rome down and commit sins against the state just as the state has done to him. Titus, speaking to Tamora insists he is not crazy in act five, stating, “I am not mad; I know thee well enough” (5.2.21), but says a few lines later in his aside, I know them all, though they suppose me mad, / And will o'erreach them in their own devices: / A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam!” (5.2.143-145). Comparing the two plays and title characters, it is interesting to note that madness appears in the characters that have become obsessed with exacting revenge upon those that have wronged them, leading further into the tragic aspect of the plays and a statement about what exactly happens to those obsessed with

Tamora urges her husband to forgive Titus’ ills because of his age and his madness that has stemmed from his dead sons, which makes him crazy. Tamora tells Saturninus to leave him alone because of this, which he eventually does. Here, the play basically dismisses serious behavior because he is crazy, which obviously is a statement that the play is making about revenge. They each treat revenge as an illness, almost, which leads to lunacy and weakness where once great people are pushed to the outskirts of society. The tragedy aspect of the Hamlet starts almost right at the beginning. Hamlet only returns to Denmark to mourn his father, celebrate the coronation of his uncle as king, and congratulate his mother on her marriage to Claudius. Though the latter might not be considered such a tragedy, it is for Hamlet, as he laments in act one, scene two. He says, “That it should come to this. / But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two. / So excellent a king, that was to this…” (1.2.138-139). Everything Hamlet experiences, especially regarding his father, uncle and mother, is in itself a tragedy; he comes home already in grief and only becomes more intensely depressed and angry as the play goes