FREE ESSAY ON LION KING VS HAMLET

LION KING VS HAMLET

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.