Comparison Essay Sample on Cinderella Folk Story and Hamlet

Introduction

In reality, humans are affectionate beings with love and healthy relationships as characteristic to all individuals. This nature of humans is reflected in folk tales, plays, narratives, poems and motion pictures that aims to drive this subject by showing how important love is and the devastation that occurs when they are lacking. It is through such aspects that readers can relate to a narrative, capturing their emotions and feeling. Two such stories that do not fall short on this aspect are Cinderella and William Shakespeare's Hamlet. The tale of Cinderella is about the life of a little girl with the same name who leads a sad life where at the end things take an unanticipated joyful turn. On the other hand, Hamlet is a tragedy about a man named Hamlet who sees his father ghost revealing his murderers and wants to revenge. It happens that his uncle murdered his father, something that disturbs him across the story. Apart from the commonness in distress of the main characters, the two stories show other similarities in setting and conflict as well as differences in the moral lesson and the characters.

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One feature common to both Cinderella and Hamlet is in their setting, and that is of the medieval period. In both stories, there is a prince who is wealthy and lives in their father's palace typical of the medieval period. Cinderella is a poor girl sentenced to live in servitude with no say on her father's wealth. The prince in the folktale is looking for a wife, and the kingdom holds a lavish ball where single women are cordially invited. Despite not dressing up to impress, she is the one who the prince wants. The royal family plays an integral part in Cinderella where a poor girl is made a princess. The royal palace is an essential part of the story as this is where Cinderella enthralls the prince. Similarly, the story of Hamlet is having a royal household and the characters belong to the royal family. The rivalry between the member of the royal family is what provides the setting to the play with all the action taking place in Denmark.

Another similarity is established in how the two stories portray the conflict affecting the protagonists. There are sibling rivalry and oedipal complexes evident from both accounts. However, it is the personal conflict that occurs within the central characters that are apparent in the stories. Cinderella conflicts with her sister who wants to rival her in everything. Cinderella wants to go to the ball, but her sister destroys her dress showing hatred and strife. Hamlet, on the other hand, conflicts with her uncle who murdered her father. He wants to avenge the death of her father but doubts whatever the ghost revealed to him.

The difference that is seen between Cinderella and Hamlet is in the moral of the two literary pieces. A moral lesson is derived from Cinderella, and this is forgiveness towards all matters. Cinderella is looked down upon by others in the story. Her stepmother is cruel and hurts her on several occasions. Her stepsister is equally harsh towards her, but she never harbors any ill feeling towards them or even thinks of paying back. Together, the tow makes the life of Cinderella hard having to deal with mean names as 'cinder wench' and 'nasty.' Cinderella is also given a lot of work with discrimination where she has to clean while the other daughter rests. Cinderella accepts her fate and considers all the suffering as predestined and bears them tolerantly especially on the knowledge that her father would not react. Perrault says about Cinderella that "The little girl was patient in her suffering and never thought of telling her father who would not give it an ear as his wife had control over him entirely" (3). Cinderella ends up with a prince at the end of the story, and all is attributed to her nature. When the stepsister and her mother apologize on the realization that she is the woman the prince has been looking for, she forgives them wholeheartedly and tells them that she wants them always to love her.

On the contrary, the play Hamlet is surrounded with the theme of revenge something that is not moral. Revenge is a theme that recurs throughout the play on several occasions and in this case, it means murder. From the start to the close, there are three instances where revenge occurs. In the first place, Hamlet senior in his ghost form wants to revenge his murder on Claudius, his brother. Hamlet is equally on a revenge mission on Claudius and Laertes for his father murder, and these two equally wants to revenge on Hamlet. Claudius killed his brother Hamlet senior because he tried to take his position and become the King and have Queen Gertrude as his wife. Hamlet senior ghost appears to Hamlet and says, "so you shall revenge when you hear". Hamlet gets the chance and finally kills his uncle earning the revenge he has been plotting for quite some time. While it is clear that forgiveness is ethical and especially between people of the same family, this story is twisted.

The other difference that is seen between the two stories is in comparing the two main characters and the ending to their stories. Cinderella gets a new meaning of life when they fall in love with the prince charming, but her initial life was not as beautiful as the story ends. Cinderella had to struggle living alongside a cruel stepmother and sister. Living without her birth mother proved to be difficult having to endure insults and a lot of daily chores. Losing her father, later on, was another blow on the lass. The life of vassalage to her new family and the unhappiness in her own home was overwhelming. However, her life changes once they get together with the prince.

On the other hand, Hamlet life is different. He is a son of a king who was rich and wealthy with his father passing away and the mother marrying his uncle, Claudius. Hamlet leads a comfortable life and has his father's wealth around him. However, he is disturbed by the betrayal of his uncle, and the thoughts are driving him crazy. In the end, he gets eternal peace when he manages to avenge his father's death.

Conclusion

In summary, there are some similarities and difference between Cinderella and Hamlet. Similarities can be seen in the setting of the stories where both of them happen in the medieval period. Besides this, another similarity is evident in the way the two narrations portray the conflict affecting the main characters. In regards to differences, the moral lesson of the stories differs. Cinderella is always teaching to forgive will in Hamlet; there is revenge which is the on the contrary. There is also some difference in the life of the protagonists of each of the stories. While there are similarities and difference in both accounts, the main characters manage to achieve their goals.

Works Cited

Bottigheimer, Ruth B. Fairy tales: a new history. SUNY Press, 2010.

Perrault, Charles. Cinderella and Other Stories. William Collins, 2015.

Shakespeare, William. William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Infobase Publishing, 2009.

Smith, Kimberly. "A Content Analysis of Cinderella Illustrated Storybooks Housed in the de Grummond Collection." SLIS Connecting 1.1 (2012): 8.