Comparison of Oedipus the King, Hamlet”, Waiting for Godot
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Some of the first forms of drama come from ancient Greece. “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles is a great example of ancient Greek tragedy, “Hamlet” by Shakespeare is the example of drama of Elizabethan period and Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot “ represents the drama of the 20th century and belongs to so called “Theatre of the Absurd”. Because all these dramas come from different period of time, its natural that they differ from each other in many aspects.
The Greek tragedy has unity of time, place and action, since it takes place all in one day, happens in a single scene, and develops only one plot. In “Hamlet” that rule is broken. Action takes place in the garden, in the castle, in the cemetery. The play doesnt have the unity of time and has many plots. In “Waiting for Godot,” however, we see close adherence to the three unities. The unity of time is two days and action is set in one place, where Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot.
In ancient drama, the character is often of noble birth and hold an important social position. At the same time, he is the tragic hero and any decision he makes lead him to personal catastrophe. An ancient main character is a victim of tragic irony. A hero commits a crime not being aware of that. He suffers some serious misfortune which is not accidental and meaningless, but is significant and logically connected with the his actions. A character in ancient drama is not largely developed psychologically. We do not get a full picture of king Oedipus personality. Weve got very little information about his appearance; his action and speech dont tell us anything about his emotions. In contrast, we know a lot about Hamlets emotions and feelings. Unlike Greek tragedy, a hero in modern drama, is often an ordinary person, not high born. Modern drama such as “Waiting for Godot” shows the tragedy not of the strong and noble, but weak and mean character.
The basic structure of the ancient drama has to do with the concept of myth. Stories were based on myth or history. The moral of these kind of myths was that the beginning and the end of the human life must only be in the Gods hands. The ancient Greeks believed that some humans could be forced by fate to act wrongly, even if they didnt want to. They believed in Ate – a goddess whose task is to lead people into confusion. She is the error that pushes people to do silly things. She was the one, who pushed Oedipus to escape from his country and kill his father on his way. When Oedipus found out from the Oracle that he would commit two awful crimes, he tried to avoid this by running away from his family, which wasnt his family. He acted as if he was divine; he thought he was stronger than fate. Unfortunately, the stranger he met on his way, was his father. And he killed him. And a women he later got married to, was his mother. In this way, Sophocles asserted that the gods are more powerful than man, that theres a limit to human ability and reason. Oedipus was punished because the moment he was told he was to kill his father and marry his mother, he thought that he could change the fate. He forgot that theres a distinction between Gods and humans – a distinction between immortals and mortals. Greek Gods want people to remember that they arent divine. If they forget about it, theyll commit a sin and itll mislead them. In Greek language its called hubris. When people forget that they are mortal, they become guilty pf hubris and this pushes them into the situation when they can commit error and flaw. This brings about their destruction. In contrast, Hamlet isnt