The Tragedies of Macbeth and Hamlet were written by William Shakespeare. The Protagonist in Macbeth is Macbeth and the protagonist in Hamlet is Claudius. These two characters are similar in the way that they are both having major downfalls in the play. Claudius" downfall is that he has to live with his conscience after killing king hamlet taking his throne and marrying his wife. Macbeth's downfall was when he killed Duncan to become king in the beginning of the play.
In the Play Hamlet, Claudius has a downfall throughout the play. His downfall is that he has to live with the fact that he killed king Hamlet After Claudius commits the deed of killing King Hamlet, he almost immediately marries Hamlet's wife, Queen Gertrude. Claudius also gains a new son, his former nephew Hamlet, the son of King Hamlet. At this point in the play, Hamlet does not know that Claudius has murdered his father, but he dislikes him anyway. Claudius has a guilty conscience because he is keeping from his wife and hamlet the fact that he murdered former king Hamlet and it wasn't just an accident. Prince Hamlet doesn't like Claudius because when hamlet saw his father's ghost he told hamlet to avenge his murder. By the beginning of Act III, Hamlet is almost ready to kill Claudius, but he still needs more proof that Claudius killed his father. Hamlet decides to set a trap for him in the form of a play. The subject of the play is the murder of a king by his brother who, in turn, marries the king's wife. The plot of the play is similar to the circumstances of King Hamlet's murder, which strikes a chord in the conscience of Claudius. In the middle of the play during the murder scene, Claudius gets up and begs for the play to stop so that he can get some air. Hamlet is very angered by this because it confirms that Claudius did kill his father. Claudius begins to loose his composure after this because because he thinks that Hamlet will kill him.