How Hamlet is and isn't Star Wars

Shakespeare’s Hamlet and George Lucas’s Star Wars movies seem at first glance to be completely different and unrelated. Take a closer look at each of the two stories, however, and you will notice many similarities, most notably in the driving action of each story. For my blog, I will be comparing the roles of the ghost/spirit in each story, as well as comparing how each story executes the basic plot of avenging a father’s death.

A ghost ends up serving as a vital part of the story in both Hamlet and Star Wars. In Hamlet, this ghost is the spirit of Hamlet’s recently murdered father, the King of Denmark. Hamlet encounters his father’s ghost early in the story, who reveals to him that the new king Claudius, his brother, was the one who murdered him. The ghost then provides the driving action for the story, instructing Hamlet to avenge his death and murder Claudius. So, in the story of Hamlet, the ghost is obviously a very important character whose role is to provide the action for the story. In Star Wars, the ghost of that story serves a different purpose and acts as a mentor and a guide for the protagonist, Luke. In Episode IV: A New Hope, Obi Wan Kenobi is physically killed by Darth Vader, but only after uttering the words, “If you strike me down now I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” And indeed, Obi Wan becomes a ghost and a guiding spirit for young Luke Skywalker, helping him stay calm in tense situations and providing useful advice.

The main similarity between the two stories is the overarching theme of avenging a father’s death. In Star Wars, Luke starts his journey by wanting to help defeat the Galactic Empire in any facet he can, but ultimately he finds that his goal ends up being to kill Darth Vader, the man who he believes killed his father. This is almost exactly the same as Hamlet, where Hamlet’s ultimate goal is to kill Claudius, again the man who killed his father. In the case of Hamlet, Claudius did very clearly kill Hamlet’s father, thus making him prone to some sort of revenge by the son. In Star Wars, Darth Vader didn’t technically kill Luke’s father Anakin, because Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader as he famously puts it (“Luke, I am your father”), but Darth Vader did in fact kill Anakin. In a scene from Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Obi Wan effectively explains to Luke that his “father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed.” So, Darth Vader murdered the good and light side of Anakin Skywalker, just like how Claudius murdered his brother, Hamlet’s father. Both stories also end with the same type of ending, as the evil Claudius and Darth Vader both die. However, the essential difference is redemption; when Vader saves Luke from the Emporer, he regains his humanity and everything that was once good about him, thus properly avenging Anakin Skywalker. In Hamlet, however, everyone ends up dying, such as Polonius, Ophelia, the Queen, Laertes, and Claudius and Hamlet, thus not properly redeeming the ghost of Hamlet’s father.

Now, there are of course numerous differences between Star Wars and Hamlet, and I’ll just name a few of them quickly: Star Wars does not take place in Denmark, there are no lightsabers or Ewoks in Hamlet, Star Wars has Jabba the Hutt, Hamlet is fiction, and a few others. But ultimately I found some of the parallels that could be drawn between the two stories very interesting. (620)