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Hamlet : The Themes Of Hamlet And Hamlet

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Medea, an ancient Greek tragedy was written by Euripides during the classical era. This play focuses on Medea and how she plots the revenge against her unfaithful husband. Jason has left Medea and their children to go marry the princess of Corinth, Glauce. This was Medea’s motivation to kill Glauce and her own children. Similarly, in Hamlet, a tragedy written by William Shakespeare during the post classical era is about Hamlet and his revenge for his father on Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle, that took his father’s life, throne, and wife. Hamlet was motivated to take revenge after seeing the ghost which was his father in Act I Scene V. In both plays, the theme of revenge is present and is represented through the main characters. Medea and Hamlet are both characters who seek revenge on those who betray them to prove their control over their lives and to preserve their honor, which leads to death and suffering. In addition, both characters went mad in order to fulfil their plotted revenge. Also, while Medea successfully took revenge against her husband and lived, Hamlet received the ultimate price of death after his revenge. In Medea, Medea finds out that Jason is leaving her for someone better than her to gain power. She is an emotional wreck due to Jason’s betrayal because she has sacrificed so much for him. She even went out of her way and killed her own father and brother for the love between her and Jason. Now that Jason is abandoning Medea for another woman when she has abandoned her family, country, and home for him, Medea is fierce. Medea seeked revenge on her husband whom she loved so much by killing his new bride, Glauce and her children she had with Jason. Medea states in lines 1238- 1247, “I must kill the children quickly and be gone. They must die, in any case, and as they must it is I, who gave them life, must kill them. Let there be no weakness now, no tender memories of their birth, of them as babies…”.(pg. 66) Medea’s children were the product of her and Jason’s love which symbolized the marriage they once had, so Medea killing her sons represented their marriage coming to an end. Killing her children will also hurt Jason which was Medea’s ultimate goal and revenge for hurting her. Similarly, in

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