Many of William Shakespeare’s plays are so memorable because of the protagonists presented in them. Shakespeare delicately crafts (his) protagonists as complex characters that (evoke) different responses from the audience, often leaving the audience with a memorable impression of how they initially felt about the protagonist and how over time those feelings changed due to their experiences in life. Even after the play, the protagonist’s reactions to the events that took place in the play stay with us, because they make us question how we would have handled the situations that the protagonist was presented with.
This exact feeling happens in two of Shakespeare’s early plays, Titus Andronicus and Hamlet. Both plays present two protagonists of who the plays are named after, Titus Andronicus and Hamlet, that are contrasting figures both presented with the task of seeking revenge. In this essay I will juxtapose how both protagonists come to the point of seeking revenge, how they handle it, and why Hamlet triumphs as the more favorable, sympathetic character. To begin with, Titus and Hamlet are from different centuries and hold different social statuses.
Titus is a Roman general and war hero who has just returned from a ten year war with the Goths. He has twenty-five sons in total but only four, Lucius, Mutius, Quintus, and Martius, survived the war. Titus is held so highly in the eyes of the Romans that he is elected to be the next emperor of Rome, but he denies it by saying “A better head her glorious body fits/Than his that shakes for age and feebleness” (1. 1. 187-188). Due to his age and his war experience, Titus arguably has more life experiences and encounters with death than Hamlet has at the beginning of Hamlet.
Hamlet, the thirty year old prince of Denmark who has never gone to war, has spent the better part of his life studying philosophy at Wittenberg. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet has returned to Denmark for his father’s funeral. His ongoing mourning is very different from Titus’ reaction to the death of his sons, which is the immediate sacrifice of Tamora’s, the Queen of the Goths who has been taken prisoner by Titus, eldest son Alarbus. The first encounter with both Titus and Hamlet is enough to show that even when presented with similar situations(,) they react dramatically different.
Furthermore, the reactions that Titus and Hamlet have to their situations show their contrasting personalities. Because Titus is a general and warrior, he is rash and decisive, which is the exact opposite of Hamlet. As stated before, Titus is quick to sacrifice Alarbus despite Tamora begging him not to. Another example of Titus’ rashness is at the beginning of the play when Titus chooses Saturnius to be emperor and gives his daughter Lavinia to Saturnius to marry. Saturnius’ brother Bassianus is engaged to Lavinia, and the two run away together to get eloped.
Titus attempts to go after them, and kills his son Mutius without hesitation when Mutius blocked Titus’ way. Titus quickly killed his own son without pondering on it simply because Mutius went against his father to support his sister, which supports that Titus is a man of brutal action. In contrast to Titus, it is very easy to see that at the start of the play Hamlet is far from a man of action, and can easily be seen as a snarky teenager despite his real age of thirty years. Hamlet’s father has died, and because Hamlet was studying in Wittenberg, his uncle Claudius has assumed the throne and Hamlet’s mother.
Hamlet expresses his distress in the second scene of the first act when replying to Claudius with “A little more than kin, and less than kind” (1. 2. 65). Hamlet is also quite rude to his mother as well, but her and Claudius’ marriage not even two months after his father’s death gives him reason to be. Both protagonists of these plays have to deal with objection to how they want things at the beginning of each play, and both again act very differently. Titus responds with his sharp sword, while Hamlet responds with his sharp tongue.
As both plays progress, events take place that allow each protagonist to become a revenge hero. Because Titus allowed his sons to sacrifice Alarbus, Tamora and her sons Chiron and Demetrius seek revenge on Titus. After getting Quintus and Martius executed by making it look like they murdered Bassianus instead of Chiron and Demetrius, Tamora gives Chiron and Demetrius to idea to rape Lavinia. In addition to raping Lavinia, Chron and Demetrius cut off both of her hands and her tongues to prevent her from revealing who raped her, which, unfortunately for them, does not work.
Once Lavinia reveals who gruesomely raped and mauled her, Titus declares that he will seek revenge on Tamora and her sons. Titus has no hesitation when deciding to seek revenge, and given what was done to his daughter, it is understandable why he is so quick to want revenge. On the other hand, Hamlet speculates long before he makes his decision to seek revenge. One important factor in each of the protagonist’s decision(s) to take action is the time frame each of them takes place. Titus takes place before the formation of Christianity, while Hamlet takes place after.
What is possibly Hamlet’s father’s ghost speaks to Hamlet from purgatory, which is how Hamlet found out that Claudius killed his father. The ghost asks Hamlet to avenge his father, which is another main difference between the protagonists journey to revenge. Titus decided to seek revenge on his own, while Hamlet was asked to. Instead of quickly coming to a rash decision like Titus would have, Hamlet makes sure to prove that Claudius indeed killed his father by setting up a play where a king was killed by the same means that Claudius killed Hamlet’s father.
When Claudius nervously leaves the room when the murder in the play occurs, Hamlet then knows that Claudius murdered his father and decides to follow through with avenging his father, which is seen later in that same scene: “Now could I drink hot blood/And do such bitter business as the day/ Would quake on” (3. 2. 389-391). Now that it is clear that both Titus and Hamlet decided to seek revenge, how far they went to accomplish it can be juxtaposed. Both Titus and Hamlet were involved in six deaths. Titus murdered Mutius, Chiron, Demetrius, Lavinia, Tamora, and was involved in Alarbus’ death.
Hamlet murdered Polonius, Laertes, Claudius, and was involved in Rosecrantz, Guildenstern, and Ophelia’s death. After discussing the manner in which Titus carried out revenge, it can be seen that he is very brutal. Not only does Titus murder Chiron and Demetrius, he slits their throats and has Lavinia collect their blood in a bowl. He then chops them up, cooks them, and serves them as pie to their mother. As if this isn’t disgusting enough, he surprises the crowd by killing Lavinia, and then stabs Tamora, killing her as well.
Although Hamlet is involved in equal deaths as Titus is, his method lacks the brutality that Titus’ method has. Hamlet does show a harsh side when he finds Claudius praying and decides not to kill him because he believed if he killed him in a moment of prayer Claudius would go to Heaven, which is the opposite of what Hamlet wanted. He also insults Ophelia and kills her father, Polonius, which causes Ophelia to commit suicide. The audience continues to see this side of Hamlet when he orders Rosecratz and Guildenstern to be killed, mortally wounds Laertes, and when he forced Claudius to drink the poison.
In recounting their journeys of revenge, it is revealed that both Titus and Hamlet spiraled down quite far to accomplish revenge, but Titus reached depths that Hamlet did not. Titus descending too deep for an audience to be able to relate to him is what makes Hamlet the more sympathetic character. Titus drops to the point of draining two human beings of their blood, chopping them up, cooking them, and serving them to their mother, which would make any sane human reader lose their appetite.
Although Hamlet is not shy to murder after he makes the decision to seek revenge, and although he describes Polonius as being eaten by worms, there is something relatable about Hamlet. The audience is able to side with Hamlet because of his philosophical nature. He deeply considers all that he is going to do, and most importantly, he deeply considers the meaning of life and death, which is something that all of us as humans can not only relate to but are experiencing ourselves.
Even without wanted to admit it, fellow humans can see Hamlet in themselves and themselves in Hamlet, which makes him such a sympathetic character. All in all, Titus and Hamlet share similar situations but each decides on seeking revenge and carries out revenge in a very different way. Because of their different characteristics and actions they took to accomplish the same thing, it is seen that Hamlet is the far more sympathetic character, because he brings to light something we all share- the human condition.
