Humanities

Thomas Adkins

HUMN 142

Mr. Kenneth Marlin

9 November 2013

Family loyalty transcends time

I can think of two characters in literature that have left an impression upon me still to this day after 44 years of life and much of that time reading novels, short stories. The first character that I want to talk about is “Hamlet” from William Shakespeare’s work of the same title, and also the “Barn Burning” – William Falkner. I feel that there are two central characters in this story, Abner and Sarty Snopes, two different characters, both vital and in my opinion, very important to the meaning and defining “Barn Burning” for the reader. Both are fantastic stories of family loyalty, yet both different in that loyalty in the end.

Prince Hamlet, a loyal son, and tortured soul. Hamlet learns of his fathers murder by his own Uncle Claudius hand, the brother of his father. From that moment Hamlet is possessed with revenge and is driven from Denmark after murdering in a fit of rage Polonius, and his own uncle plots to kill him as well. Upon returning to Denmark, Hamlet still has revenge on his mind even more after the attempt on his own life. Hamlet is poisoned by Laertes the son of Polonius and brother of Ophelia, driven mad after the death of her father at the hand of a tortured Hamlet. Claudius plots with Laertes to poison Hamlet with a tipped dueling sword, and having poison wine in the advent if Laertes fails to strike Hamlet with the poison tipped sword. Gertrude drinks poison wine and dies during the duel. While dueling both Laertes and Hamlet are cut with the poisoned sword, while dying Laertes tells Hamlet of the plot,

Laertes – It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain; No medicine in the world can do thee good; In thee there is not half an hour of life; The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, unabated and envenom’d: the foul practice hath turn’d itself on me lo, here I lie, never to rise again: thy mother’s poison’d : I can no more: the...