Death in Hamlet and Gilgamesh

Theme is a very important part of any work, whether that work is a poem, a short story, a novel, or even a play. The theme incorporates a common idea, emotion, or item that is expressed throughout the work using different literary tools and styles. Themes allow a reader to relate to the story, learn a lesson or a moral, or understand a point that an author is trying to get across. In literature, death is a predominant theme. Death is a major part of any religion or worldview, and every group handles it differently. Death can be a celebration of afterlife for the deceased or a time of grieving for the loss of the deceased. Funerals, burials, masses, ceremonies, and cremations are all events that could take place as a final closure to the deceased's life. Friends and family join together to support one another and remember their loved one's life. Perhaps because death is such a big and dramatic aspect of our lives, writers for centuries have incorporated death into their works. Shakespeare's Hamlet and Gilgamesh are both works that continue touch people profoundly after so many centuries because they both include this issue that touches all people in any time period - the anguish of loss and death of a human being. Sometimes literary works can be solely based upon a death, or they simply utilize death as a consistent theme in order to teach a lesson. In both of these works, the main character experiences the death of a loved one, but the benefit of this occurrence is strength gained in their time of grief.

Gaimari 2

Hamlet is a very emotional play. The characters are all very unique and are intertwined with one another in a way that one single event touches each person in...