Meditation 9

The plays Everyman and Hamlet can be compared if one really puts their mind to it. Both plays talk about death early and often. In Hamlet, the whole play is virtually about revenge by means of death, and in Everyman the whole work is talking about Everyman the character going to his grave. Also, in both plays the main character (Hamlet and Everyman) realize that their fate is going to happen and there is nothing to they can do about it. Everyman realizes he is going to die and tries to get people to come along with him, but no one wants to go to his grave with him. In Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet, wants to seek revenge on his uncle Claudius, for killing his father. That is Hamlet’s whole purpose throughout the play. He performs a test on his uncle (having travelers re-act his father’s death in front of Claudius to see how he reacts) to attempt to prove his guiltiness. From the beginning, Hamlet knows what his job is because of his father’s ghost that tells him to take revenge.
These plays also talk about outside worlds intervening. In Hamlet, there is a ghost that comes and talks to Hamlet. In Everyman, God tells death to go and tell Everyman his fate. Both of these situations occur at the beginning of the works and influence what the main characters will do throughout the rest of the writings.