Selfish Human Nature In Oedipus The King And Hamlet

Man will always have an innate desire to have what isn’t his. Discontent is a hopeless side effect to human nature, and unfortunately all men deal with it hundreds of instances within a lifetime. What people don’t realize, though, is they are given what they have for a reason. The creator of the universe purposely places things, people, and circumstances in everyone’s life when it is appropriate. When men chase after their own desires, it often results in some sort of consequence. This, the effects of selfish human nature, can be observed in many characters in Oedipus the King and Hamlet. Claudius, a character in the play Hamlet, is the ultimate example of a greedy human being. Claudius was the runner up to being crowned king. His adored …show more content…
As the king of Thebes, Oedipus cared about the wellbeing of his people. When Thebes was struck with a horrendous plague, Oedipus wanted to know why his people were suffering and how to put an immediate end to it. What he didn’t realize, though, was that he would go down a path of extensive investigation to find out he was the reason Thebes had been cursed. Oedipus was born into a cursed family. When Oedipus was a baby, his parents, Laios and Jokasta, received a prophecy that their little boy would grow up and kill his father and sleep with his mother. In order to save Laios from death and Jokasta from humiliation, they decided to exile Oedipus and leave him to die. They thought their selfish feat would save them from the miserable fate that had been placed upon them, but it didn’t. Oedipus, who was found where his parents had left him with his feet bound, grew up believing he was the son of the king and queen of Korinth. Early on in Oedipus’s life, he experienced an interaction with an oracle that revealed to him his horrific fate. Oedipus was astounded by the news and decided to flee far from his home. However, because people, who were unrelated to him, raised Oedipus, fleeing from them made no difference in his life’s series of unfortunate …show more content…
Because they were fearful of what their future entailed and concerned about their own reputation, Jokasta and Laios decided to greedily take matters upon themselves. This caused their son to live his life in a lie. When Oedipus inevitably uncovered the truth about what had become of his life, he was devastated. He had lived in a state of blindness for the majority of his life, a life that was supposed to be done away with from the beginning. Though conducted differently, both scenarios in Hamlet and Oedipus the King portray two murder scenes. One was performed out of lust over another’s power, and succeeded, and one was performed out of anxiety for the future, and failed. Both resemble the natural tendency for human beings to take matters into their own hands even when it isn’t theirs to take. Both show the tendency for people to act in greed when they realize life isn’t panning out as they want. And both are examples of the consequences faced when human beings follow the desires of their selfish