Parent-Child Relationships in Hamlet & King Lear

The complex parent-child situation at home initiates and drives the action of Hamlet, and Hamlet is the hub of parent-child relationships with his mother, his new stepfather/uncle, and the ghost of his father. Hamlet's emotional ties have been turned upside down. He compares Uncle Claudius unfavorably to the elder Hamlet, "no more like my father / Than I to Hercules" (I.ii). He does not understand how Gertrude could forget memories of the marriage with his father, which was plainly a love match. Gertrude "would hang on him, / As if increase of appetite had grown / By what it fed on: and yet, within a month-- / Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!" (I.ii). It turns out Hamlet's father was murdered by Claudius and that Hamlet must fix this evil by dispatching the new stepfather. But he is torn between action and thinking about consequences. His delay fosters many casualties and tragedies--including Hamlet himself.

The importance of the parent-child dynamics to the play is that they explain the psychological turmoil of all the characters. Hamlet's mourning of his father is critic

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l destiny for the soul, would he not also have had the piety--unless he were willing to incur damnation--to leave that supernatural destiny to the judgment of God? Certainly he was rationalizing his inaction. But I think there is sincerity in what he says. He can find no satisfaction in a mere physical dispatch of his villainous uncle; Hamlet . . . wants . . . something more--a deeper, more ultimate meaning for his act (Abel 54). Abel does not argue that Hamlet is concerned with Christian doctrine, right and wrong, or the basic morality of regicide, though Hamlet does express directly Christian concerns about his own soul vis-a-vis the Ghost. But all is overtaken by Hamlet's larger sense of the moral balance to be accomplished by the revenge. The content of that balance is the obligation of filial piety, which from a cosmic perspective would not quite be satisfied if Claudius were dispatched while at prayer--even though the irony is that Claudius cannot pray and knows he is damned. Later, in the wake of the shock of Gertrude's death, compounded by Laertes's public blaming of the King and Hamlet's realization that his own death is imminent, it is perfectly appropriate that, in the fullness of his prerogative as injured son and prin
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Some common words found in the essay are:
King Lear, IIIiii73-75 Abel's, Freud Hamlet, II148-50 Edmund's, Iiv187-8 Lear, IVi Worried, Regan Lear, Lear Gloucester, Ii Lear, Claudius Hamlet, filial piety, king lear, goneril regan, heaven /, parent-child relationships, hamlet's hesitation, rowse york clarkson, shakespeare vol, romances ed, tragedies romances, romances ed al, drives action, york clarkson potter, al rowse york, ed al rowse,
Approximate Word count = 2509
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)