Compare And Contrast Hamlet And Martin Luther

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Recommended: Relationship between Hamlet and his mother

Hamlet’s and Martin Luther’s relationships with their families play a fundamental significance in their lives. Both protagonists present a mixed feeling of resentment and love toward their mothers, and show strong devotions to their fathers. Hamlet shows strong disgust towards his mom’s marriage to Claudius, and believes his mom has betrayed his father and broken their marriage vows (Hibbard 279). Moreover, he thinks his mom is weak and lustful, as she is eager to get into bed with Claudius (Hibbard 282). However, even though Hamlet portrayed abomination towards his mom, he still loves her as a son. Throughout the play, Hamlet struggles with his revenge and shows much hesitation for a character; however, in the last scene of the play when …show more content…

Hamlet was spiritually and mentally ill while Luther was spiritually and physically ill. Luther suffered from mental and emotional instabilities, like depression and scrupulosity throughout his life (Judd 324). Moreover, he was affected by frequent mood swings and his bipolar disorder in which he suffered from periods of exaltation and depression (Bainton 12). He worried about the afterlife and the idea of death, and believed nothing could save his soul (Bainton 18). He recalls his days in the monastery the main reason that caused him to experience psychological and emotional instability due to the distorted religious practice (Judd 326). After his first year in the monastery, anxiety, the felling of despair and guilt soon overwhelmed him (Judd 326). Therefore, he turned to his religious leaders, the sacraments of his church, and the doctrines of his own religions for help to control the guilt he was feeling. However, they did not help at all. In addition, during the years at the monastery, he was obsessed with the practice of fasting from food and drink to worship God. As a result, such practice destroyed his body, and he later on stated that such action would simply ruin one’s heath and drive one to madness (Judd 326). Moreover, after his hearing at the Worms, he was lonely, physically ill, and constipated. He also suffered from extreme insomnia and depression (Bainton 191-192). Additionally, in 1527, he was wrestling with the “self-reproach of being still alive”, and he found himself as being not worthy. As a result, he once again struggled with depression as he was losing the faith that “God is good and that he is good to me”

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