Identity in Shakespeare's Hamlet and David Flincher's Fight Club

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This revolutionized the notion of theatre by stressing on a particular purpose: the representation of drama as an "aesthetic or artistic experience and not as a conventional entertainment or instruction" (Carlson). In fact, this is the historical context in which Fight Club was introduced. "Drama is a mean for society to reflect upon itself and its' beliefs."(Carlson) Therefore, it is fundamental to acknowledge that Hamlet and Fight Club embody a central crisis that is exposed differently within their distinctive historical contexts. A work of art cannot be deemed as an art unless someone scrutinizes it. Hamlet and Fight Club, both masterpieces, share a general theme that is expressed in different manners across each text. Through the author's creation of the main protagonist who subverts, in a dissident manner, the dominant ideology of their distinctive eras, the general theme is underlined. This theme consists in identity being based on external signs rather than the inner ...

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It is worthy to observe that this idea can be conveyed again through his cynical taunting of Claudius and his earnest indictment towards his mother Gertrude, through the tremendous respectfulness and the staggering disrespectfulness he exhibits all at once within a single speech while referencing to his father's ghost. His uses of words vary from "king, father, royal Dane"(1.4.45) to " Art thou there, truepenny"(1.5.150) and "Well said, old mole"(1.5.162). All of these excerpts are contradicting in terms of extensive language use. Thereby showing that Hamlet is in the process of defining his own identity through his transition from refined to unrefined words that act as a medium to ...

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