Hamlet And Bacchae Comparison

In a drama, a tragedy is the occurrence of unfortunate and consequently, disastrous events or circumstances that fall upon the protagonist in the play. Looking back hundreds of years ago we come across playwrights like Shakespeare and Euripides. Both have written some very tragic pieces, but which one wins for writing the most tragic play? A comparison between Hamlet and The Bacchae shows many similarities but also, many differences. This two pieces show very revealing characters enduring human struggle and death. By looking at three vital components in each play, it is easy to see that Hamlet is the more tragic of the two. I will be defining the tragic hero, both mothers in the plays, and looking at irony and how it is used. In a tragedy,
But what happens when your mother is bewitched? Or is completely blind to what is going on around her? In both plays, the mothers play an important role. In the Bacchae, Dionysus casts a spell on all the women in Thebes, including Pentheus’s mother. Towards the end of the play she helps in the tearing of him to pieces and brings his head back to the village thinking that it was the head of a lion. Once she has come to the realization of what she had done she is horrified and will have to live with that for the rest of her life. Although this is tragic, the fact that Dionysus had all to do with the act makes me direct more anger and disgust towards him for doing such a thing, while still feeling some sympathy for Agave. In Hamlet, Gertrude suffers months of grieving and suffering before coming to her unanticipated death. She first endures the death of her husband, and while she is vulnerable, her brother-in-law swoops in and the two fall in love, ending in their marriage. After Hamlet is certain that Claudius is the one who killed his father he begins plotting his revenge. He encounters much frustration and begins to become paranoid and go crazy. His mother must sit through all of his episodes and antics and watches him stab Polonius to death. At the end of the play she watches her son fight Laertes in a fencing matching with poison swords and sits next to a poisoned cup that is for Hamlet. Gertrude takes a sip after Claudius tells her not to and she falls to the ground shortly after. Right before she dies she cries out to Hamlet that the cup must have been poisoned. In the last few moments before she dies, she can no longer protect her son and knows that her husband was trying to kill Hamlet. In Roche’s, Tragedy and Comedy, he states, “Tragedy is an action in which the hero’s greatness leads inexorably to suffering.” The kind