Lion King Vs Hamlet Essay, Research Paper
The movie, The Lion King, and the book, Hamlet, both have a similar story line. In both stories, the king is killed and revenge is sought by the king’s son. The murderers in the stories are the king’s brothers who want the power of the throne. After the death of the Kings, both of the villains successfully took over the kingdoms. While these villains ruled, the kingdoms slowly deteriorated. Neither of the sons liked the villains, but they did not know at first that they had anything to do with their father’s death. It took an outside force to convince them that they must vow revenge for their father’s death. Both sons had the wit to approach revenge strategically. They wanted the villains to know that they knew about how their fathers were murdered.
The leading roles in each of the stories had a corresponding role in the other. The corresponding characters shared a number of similarities, but it was the ways in which they were different that determined their fate and that of the kingdom. In Hamlet, the prince is Hamlet. He is in deep grieving of his father’s death. He is angry because he believes that everyone has already forgotten how great of a king his father was. Hamlet does not know for sure who is responsible for his father’s death, but he suspects Claudius who is his uncle and the new king. Hamlet decides that if he can convince everyone that he is insane, then maybe he will be able to get someone to tell him more about his father’s murder. In The Lion King, Simba is the prince. Simba’s father, Mufasa, is killed after he falls from a cliff into a herd of hyenas. Simba falls into a deep depression after his uncle Scar twists things around and convinces Simba that he is the one responsible for the Mufasa’s death. Simba can not deal with what has happened and he runs away from the kingdom.
In Hamlet, The new king Claudius is able to gain respect from the kingdom. He even steals the love of Hamlet’s mother Gertrude. The old king’s councilor, Polonius, becomes Claudius’s councilor and his best friend. He helps Claudius keep an eye on Hamlet and tries to keep him from finding out anything about his father’s death. Polonius believes that if he helps Claudius that he can make life better for himself and for his daughter and son. But in the end, his actions get him slayed, drive his daughter to insanity, and eventually set the stage for his son to die in a sword fight with Hamlet. In The Lion King, as soon as Scar takes over as king, everything in the kingdom begins to die and grow ugly. The three Hyenas become Scar’s helpers. He uses them to do his work and to keep an eye on Simba. The Hyenas think that by helping Scar, they will earn some power, but Scar eventually double-crosses them.
In Hamlet, Hamlet’s mother crosses her son by marrying Claudius. She loved Hamlet, but she wanted to keep her title as queen. Throughout the play she shows that she is loyal to Claudius because she tells him everything that Hamlet tells her. Hamlet can’t understand how a woman could just forget the love of one man, his father, and jump right into another bed with a new man. He begins to hate all women because of this. In The Lion King, Sarabi, Simba’s mom has great pride and faith in her son. When her husband dies, she knows that Simba is not to blame. She also believes that Simba has the strength to take the throne back and reclaim the kingdom.
Hamlet’s only friend who he can trust in the play is Horatio. When Hamlet sees the ghost of his father, he is able to confide in Horatio about what he had seen and what the ghost had told him. The ghost told Hamlet that Claudius was the murderer of his father. This is easy for Hamlet to believe because he doesn’t like Claudius. Hamlet gets an idea to perform a play in front of the whole kingdom that would depict the way in which he believed Claudius killed his father. He shares his idea with Horatio and gets him to watch Claudius to see how he reacts. When Claudius sees the play, he can barely breathe. His actions convince Hamlet and Horatio that he is the murderer. Hamlet now has the proof he vows to kill Claudius the next time he catches him in an act of sin, so that he is guaranteed to go to hell. In The Lion King, Simba has many friends. They all believe in him. His best friend in Nala, who he ends up falling in love with. She is able to finally convince him that Scar was the one who killed his father. By now, Simba was grown and he was prepared to fight Scar and take back the throne.
The ending in Hamlet was a tragedy. Hamlet is involved in a sword match with Laertes who is Polonius’s son. King Claudius and Hamlet’s mother are there to watch the fight. Claudius and Laertes had already planned for this fight to be the death of Hamlet. Laertes sword was poisoned and as a back up a drink in which Hamlet was to drink from was also poisoned. Instead of Hamlet drinking the wine, his mother takes a drink in honor of her son. She starts to feel the poison and she warns Hamlet of it before she dies. It is too late though, the poisonous sword had cut Hamlet. In anger, Hamlet steals the poisoned sword and runs it into Laertes. He then charges Claudius and runs it into him. He also takes the wine and forces Claudius to drink from it. Both Claudius and Laertes die before Hamlet. Hamlet regains his throne for a few seconds, until the poison sets in and takes his life. The Lion King has a happy ending. Simba returns to his kingdom and he finds Scar. He tells Scar that he knows about his father’s death. Scar lies to Simba by telling him that the Hyenas were the ones who killed Mufasa. This upsets the Hyenas. They leave Scar to fight Simba by himself. Simba wins the fight and throws Scar off a cliff, into the herd of the Hyenas. The hyenas show no remorse for Scar and they trample over him, killing him. Once Simba takes back the throne, the whole kingdom becomes beautiful again and everyone is happy.
The two stories had similar plots and characters. But in the end, the small differences in how the characters acted separated the tragedy of Hamlet from the happy ending of Disney’s The Lion King.