Shakespeare's Hamlet and Herman Hesse's Siddhartha meet the words Eliot's "Little Gidding"

One of T.S. Eliot's most famous poetic protagonists, that of J. Alfred Prufrock, may lament that he is not Prince Hamlet, only a fool like Yorick or Polonius of the tragedy that bears the prince's name. But a closer examination of Shakespeare's play highlights the fact that the noble Prince Hamlet, is not really so noble at all, but begins the play in a state of adolescent moodiness, mourning his dead father, even though in the words of his uncle Claudius "your father lost a father, and your father lost his." Hamlet begins the play, not a young anointed king-to-be but a man angered at the limited, fleshy nature of human existence as well as the dissatisfactory reconstruction of his own family.

Hamlet sees falseness wherever he goes. He sees his mother whom once followed like "Niobe, all...
[ View Full Essay]