Themes Comparison in “Hamlet' and “The Great Gatsby”

Introduction

The novel “Hamlet” has written by Shakespeare that postulates the attention of the viewer towards the concept of tragedy. Hamlet is almost certainly the world's most famous play, featuring drama's and literature's most fascinating and complex character. The many-sided Hamlet—son, lover, intellectual, prince, warrior, and avenger is the consummate test for each generation's leading actors, and to be an era's defining Hamlet are perhaps the greatest accolade one can earn in the theater. Hamlet also commands a crucial, central place in William Shakespeare's remarkable career (Rosenberg, 34). First performed around 1600, the play stands near the midpoint of the playwright's two-decade career as a culmination and recent departure. Second novel that has been used in this paper for comparison is “The Great Gatsby”, written by Scott Fitzgerald. Educators and lay readers alike often describe The Great Gatsby as a novel about the American dream—the opportunity for individuals to achieve economic independence and succeed in areas that are most important to them (Bloom, 136).

Themes of the Novel Hamlet

In Hamlet, there are multiple manifestations of the revenge theme. A little-discussed aspect of revenge that is antecedent to play, but which is resolved in the action, is the war that Fortinbras, the elder king of Norway, had waged against Hamlet's father, the king of Denmark. In seeking to annex portions of Poland, the elder Fortinbras had brought his army through and against Denmark. The elder King Hamlet slew King Fortinbras and took land from him; it was on that day that young Hamlet was born. The turn of events at the end of Hamlet makes Fortinbras's act of vengeance unnecessary (Sobran, 94). The play's primary call for justice is to avenge the murder of King Hamlet, and it is organized around this main narrative theme and its ...