Individuality of Bereavement (compare and contrast Hamlet and The Lion King)
...Mufasa appears to Simba, he tells him to remember who he is. He is allowing Simba to not only right the wrong that has been done to both of them and take back the Pride lands, but he is allowing him to take that next step in the grieving process. He can make his father proud and knows that he will always be with him, which gives him some closure. Hamlet also clearly sees and hears his father. He tell him to “revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” This is when Hamlet discovers that his father did not just die, he was murdered! This could easily have been said to be the hallucination of one experiencing deep profound grief if it had not been witnessed by his friends, so he swears them to “never make known what they had seen that night.” He then uses another aspect of the grieving process, his “madness,” to mask his objective of revenge. Revenge in this context would be seen as a coping mechanism for his loss. His mourning is real but it also allows him to get away with the appearance of madness. Hamlet plays on that normal aspect of grieving, by appearing crazy to mask his agenda. His agenda is to seek revenge on Claudius, his “uncle-father,” the murderer of his father. Mourning has unmistakably taken oven both Simba and Hamlets lives in common yet different ways. When someone close to us dies mourning can last an undetermined amount of time. Grieving is expected but as time passes it’s not tolerated well by others. It is not unusual for the people around us to go about what they were doing within days or weeks while our pain is so clearly still torturing us. When Hamlet opens his father has been dead only two months. He is livid that his mother has moved on and remarried so quickly after his death. Hamlet can’t understand how a woman could just forget the love of one man, his father, and jump right into another bed with another. It seems that everyone has already forgotten him. When Hamlet begins to act out, pretend he’s mad and begin plotting revenge, this is part of what is called complicated grief. It is evidence of self-destructive behavior and psychiatric symptoms which increase in length and severity. Complicated grief is when normal grief becomes exaggerated or distorted. Anger becomes extreme, and in the case of Hamlet, he appears to be showing signs of insanity while his anger toward his Uncle is growing. The mourning of Simba is spread out over his adolescence. He of course feels guilt because he believes he is to blame for his father, Mufasa’s, death. He thinks this because his uncle Scar twists things around and convinces Simba that he is the one responsible and makes him painfully aware that everyone will know it is his fault. There are normal thoughts associated with this guilt like “if only I hadn’t been there” or “I should have been able to help him.” These are normal feelings in the grieving and Simba goes through this difficult process in his own way. He runs away. He feels great shame that the king’s death is his fault and he runs away, planning never to come back. By absconding Simba can experience many of the classic coping methods of grief. He avoids reminders of his father, doesn’t talk about him, puts the past in the past and doesn’t discuss or deal with the awful thing he (thinks he) has done. He takes up the attitude “Hakuna Matata” which means no worries and avoids his loss. Guilt, shame, avoiding reminders of the deceased, social withdrawal are all normal feeling or behaviors associated with bereavement. Many people who experience the traumatic untimely death of someone they love become preoccupied with seeking justice and that can place healing on hold. Hamlet is avenging his father’s murder while mourning him. Simba is trying to take back the Pride lands, take his rightful plac...