Since the beginning of time, a battle between good and evil has always been waged. This idea has been incorporated into many stories throughout the development of literature. Two classic examples of this timeless conflict are Shakespeare's Hamlet and Sophocles" Oedipus. Oedipus and Hamlet, are both exposed to incestuous marriage, and experience madness.
In the two plays, Oedipus and Hamlet are unconsciously exposed to incest. After Oedipus unknowingly kills the former king, he enters the City of Thebes after solving the Sphinx's riddle and freeing the citizens of her morbid tax, the people choose him to be their new king. Along with his kingship, he marries the former kings wife, Jocasta, who tragically, is Oedipus" true mother. Similarly, Hamlet's uncle, Claudius who also kill's the former king, by pouring poison "in the Porches" of his ears while he lay asleep in the garden (1.5.63). Then marries the queen, Gertrude, being the mother of Hamlet: Hamlet states, " the funeral baked meats/Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables" (1.2. 180-81). Here, Hamlet is saying that the food that was served at his father's funeral was still fresh enough to serve at his mother and uncle's wedding, indicating their wedding was too soon after the death of the king. Although Oedipus and Jocasta's marriage was incestuous, they did not know that the prophecies were true. Oedipus tells Jocasta, "He said that I would be my Mother's lover, show offspring to mankind they could not look at, and be his murderer whose seed I am" (2. 796-799). Claudius and Gertrude were very aware of their incestuous marriage, and Oedipus and Jocasta were not.
Both Oedipus and Hamlet experience a kind of madness. Oedipus, after realizing he killed the former king and married his mother, went crazy: .
Wildly he ran to each of us, asking for his spear and for his wife: no wife where he might find the double mother-field, his and his children's/ He saw, was stricken, and with a wild roar ripped down the dangling noose.
