Hamlet/Macbeth Comparison

1. Fighting

Hamlet-In the story, there is much fighting going on in between characters. This rings true especially at the end, where pretty much the entire royal court dies while the Norwegians are taking over the castle as they are fighting each other.


Macbeth-The story starts out with fighting, and pretty much ends with a big fight. There is a lot of blood and gore. It is similar to Hamlet because there is kind of a civil war element to it.


2. Crazy people

Hamlet-In the story, Ophelia goes crazy and eventually kills herself. It is not sure what event triggered this, but it was probably a combination of a lot of bad events such as her fathers death and the man she loved saying he never loved her.


Macbeth-Lady Macbeth goes crazy because she feels badly about forcing Macbeth to go on this rampage by telling him to kill king Duncan. The reason she goes crazy is her fault, unlike Ophelia in which outside events contributed to this.


3. Anger


Hamlet-Hamlet has a huge amount of anger for Claudius because he killed his father and married his mother. This is very understandable, but he doesn't take any action about his anger until it is too late.


Macbeth-Macduff, on the other hand, uses his anger almost immediatly and vanquishes Macbeth. This is very different from Hamlet in the case that he succeeds in his conquest, while Hamlet doesn't totally succeed.