Contrasting Fortinbras and Laertes with Hamlet in William Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet.Laertes,Fortinbras and Hamlet find them selves in similar situations, while Hamlet waits for the right time to avenge his fathers death,Laertes learns of his fathers death and immediately wants vengeance,and Fortinbras awaits his chance to recapture the land that used to belong to his father.Laertes and Fortinbras go about accomplishing their desires quite differently than Hamlet.While Hamlet acts slowly and carefully, Laertes and Fortinbras seek their revenge with hate.Although each character plots to avenge his fathers death in the play,the motives of Laertes and Hamlet are more similar than Fortinbras and Hamlet.
After King Hamlets death,Laertes and Hamlet return to Denmark for the funeral services, this is the first sign of similarity between the two.Both Laertes and Hamlet are very fond of Laertes sister, Ophelia, which is the second similarity of the two.The third similarity of Laertes and Hamlet is that they both grieve over a death.Laertes grieves the death of Ophelia,while Hamlet grieves over his father, King Hamlet.The final similarity of Laertes and Hamlet is that they both seek revenge for the death of their fathers.Both succeed in their quest for revenge.
A major difference between Laertes and Hamlet is that Laertes didn't procrastinate in his revenge.He went right to it with the encouragement of Claudius.It is hastiness is what gets him killed in the end.Because Laertes doesn't think long about getting his revenge,it gives the reader reason to compare Laertes struggle to Hamlets struggle to decided weather revenge is the right thing to do or not.Hamlet argues this point the whole .
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play showing the audience that he is very careful in making decisions.
In Hamlet,Shakespear makes Laertes look like a "bad guy" because he wants to revenge his father by killing Hamlet,but Hamlet is doing the exact same thing to Claudius.