The heroic temper in “Hamlet” and “Taxi Driver”

Abstract

In this essay I wish to trace numerous affinities of theme, metaphor, and plot between Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and Martin Scorsese’s film, Taxi Driver. Drawing from two claustrophobic settings, those of tragedy and film noir, the same anxiety, paranoia, and restlessness that contribute to the characterization of both heroes, Hamlet and Travis Bickle, as topoi of the Sophoclean tragic hero, conform to most features described by Bernard Knox in The Heroic Temper.