hamlet and brave new world

Essay by vincy123High School, 12th gradeA+, April 2014

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Compare and Contrast Essay

Among the fascinating history of literature, Brave New World and Hamlet are two shining pearls that provided us with intriguing thoughts on society, our own identities and our complicated relationships with the society. The heroes of the two stories, John the savage and Prince Hamlet, are typical outcasts of our society and have plentiful in common. Both John and Hamlet have distorted personalities and confronted the injust society they resided in , however, Hamlet suceeded in eliminating the evils while John failed to do so.

Both John and Hamlet displayed abnormality of mind in the novels. In the book Brave New World, John the savage had performed numerous erratic actions suggesting his madness. He had told Bernard that once he "stood against a rock in the middle of the day, in summer, with his arms out, like Jesus on the Cross"(Huxley, P119)Although he stated that his action was inconsideration of curing his unhappiness, the odd behaviour of self-suffering still clearly proves that his thoughts are often strange and irrgular.

Futhermore, when Helmholtz asked him that why he looked ill, he replied that he "drank some mustard and warm water"(Huxley, P213) He had referred to the action as "purifying" himself. By hurting himself, he was trying to escape from the reality and the corruptedness of the society. But his extreme action is an evidence that he is mentally instable. Moreover, his whipping of himself was a surprising climax of the story. "The knotted cords bit into his flesh"(Huxley, P223). His mind had been a turmoil after seeing the filthy society. The hurtful experiences was pushing him into more self-mutilation. As an outcast, he performs behaviours that are incomprehensible by others in the society which further encourged his bizzare actions and which, indeed, pushed him further out...