Narrative Similarities in Sang-e-Mah and Hamlet

From the postulation of play with the phenomenon of Ghag to the breaking of cultural stigmatization like marginalization and alienation of women, The Pakistani TV serial Sang-e-Mah is catching viewers, stirring debates, and inviting criticism with every episode. A play that is finely written accurately dramatized with strong characters, cultural representing props, and especially its outdoor recording in the rustic environment is appealing to both, general people and speculative minds. 

For individuals who possess active faculties toward humanities are taking a grave interest in the play. But not just this there is a deeper layer to this play which makes it more intriguing and anticipated. The play is following a shadow postulating framework that is borrowed from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 

In shake spear’s Hamlet Claudius, who is Hamlet’s uncle, kills Hamlet’s father with poison and ascends the throne by marrying his wife (Hamlet’s mother; Gertrude). 

Sang-e- Mah also follows the same event where Hajji kills Hilmand’s father Nasrullah khan and marries his mother; Zarsanga. Hamlet the son of King Hamlet decides to avenge his father’s tragic fate but delays his actions to accumulated concrete pieces of evidence that could prove Claudius as the killer of his father. Hilmand like Hamlet is also going through the same, he is sure about who has killed his father but waits to gather concrete pieces of evidence to prove the suspect guilty. Thus this intertextuality gives rise to the first and major dramatic conflict in both plays. Helmand and hamlet both feel responsible to avenge the death of their fathers from the current husbands of their mothers. 

Both the protagonists carry some striking similarities between themselves. Their names, Hamlet and Helmand, are near homophones, and so is their maddening nature. Hamlet, after he comes to know about the tragic death of his father, becomes secluded from mainstream society and acts madly according to his mother, father, and others. Hilmand has also the same persona, he remains ascetic and lives mostly in his friend’s hujra or talks to his father setting beside his tomb in the graveyard, who acts synonymously like the ghost in Hamlet by giving him suggestions about the truthfulness of his speculations.  

The love life of Hilmand also appears to be following the same fate as that of Hamlet.  

Sheherzaad who has pure infatuations towards Helmand and has opened up about her love for Hilmand seems as if her love is unrequited and deserted like Ophelia, who-Ophelia- in the end, returns the gifts and letter to Hamlet and kills herself when she is expected to spy on Hamlet.

Though the play has yet to read its midpoint and there is a lot to unfold. There is no certainty whether a ‘mouse trap’, like the one in Hamlet, will take place or not. The fate of Sheherzaad is also not decided yet and it would be very immature to anticipate the end of the play as the same as in Hamlet by Shakespeare.     

It’s important to praise the minds behind the play, who have worked so well to change the nature of narrative according to the cultural demands and environment of the current times.  

For the time being it’s evident that the dramatic conflict, opening narrative, character of protagonists, and their love life are the same in the Pakistani Play Sang-e-Mah and Shakespeare written Hamlet.

This comparative article is written by Shah Faisal, one of the contributors to the School of Literature. Join SOL Team here.