Juxtaposition of the use of regicide in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth. "Crowing achievements are best made in cold blood"

Regicide is defined by the Webster's Dictionary as "The killing of a king". Webster could not have oversimplified this representation more. The ancient art of king killing has existed in a myriad of different forms; stealthy, barbarian, and honorable regicides have been recorded liberally in both literature and the annals of history. Regicide is an act of enormous weight - it takes an extraordinary stimulus to move a man to commit such an act. In …

…tool to better define his characters. Prince Hamlet was seen as a falsely resolute and frustrated son avenging his father's death. Macbeth was seen as a power-hungry foolhardy man who could not place his own morals over his ambition. Other minor characters were also defined by acts of regicide. Macduff and Malcolm were seen as characters that would beg a nation's mortal enemy for help (England) to defeat and ultimately to avenge their family deaths.