Comparing Hamlet And The Lion King

Tera Kraushaar April 5, 2024 Junior Honors Literature To Be Or Not To Be King Hamlet is one of the most fascinating pieces of English literature many schools teach thus far. Many children have never understood how many parallels there are within The Lion King that resemble significant events in the famous Shakespearean play, Hamlet. In High School, many begin to find parallels between not only The Lion King and Hamlet, but also parallels between several other Disney movies and Shakespearean writings as well. The premise of The Lion King and Hamlet is generally similar regarding the plot. They both follow the same story line, with the father dying initially and the uncle taking over the throne. Both Hamlet and Simba become consumed by grief,

As the story of Hamlet begins, the death of the King is not shown. The first act begins with Claudius giving a speech to the kingdom about how horrible it is that they lost the king, but he is happy to assume the responsibility of being King. When Assuming the role of the king, Claudius gives a speech that begins by saying, “Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe, Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature That we with wisest sorrow think on him Together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, The imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we—as ’twere with a defeated joy, With an auspicious and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole—Taken to wife.” The King is essentially saying that he still feels the pain from his brother's death, but they must move forward. This furthers how fast they moved after the King’s death, and could potentially explain Hamlet’s actions and why he became so angry. Hamlet is a very complicated character and can be hard to follow throughout the

Hamlet is struggling with the idea of his father's death and how his mother Gertrude and Uncle Claudius handled the current situation. He explains his feelings to his mother in one of his most famous soliloquies, “Frailty, Thy Name is Women!” He begins to explain his feelings to his mother by saying, “'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature; possess it merely. That it should come to this. But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two. So excellent a king, that was to this.Frailty, thy name is woman!—A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father’s body, Like Niobe, all tears. Why she, even she—O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer!” Hamlet explains how he feels as though his mother never actually loved his father because she went and remarried as soon as she did. He does begin to insult his mother by calling her weak, but in the end, he decides to no longer continue the speech. Hamlet ends by saying, “Within a month, Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes, She married. O most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous