KARACHI:
In the movie, The Lion King, Simba, the exiled young successor following the murder of his father Mufasa, returns to the Pride Lands. Upon his return, he discovers that his once-thriving kingdom has become desolate and barren under the rule of his uncle Scar. The cinematography portrays Simba’s return as a catalyst for rain in the land and the clouds representing past kings like Mufasa contribute to ending the searing drought. Some movie critics argue that Scar is responsible for the devastation. However, by assassinating the king, Scar disrupts the natural order and Simba’s return is depicted as an effort to restore nature to its rightful course.
Similarly, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the character Marcellus utters the line, “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” when the ghost of the late king appears to enjoin Prince Hamlet to avenge his assassin who is the late king’s brother and now the incumbent ruler. Marcellus wanted to allude that ghosts did not appear during normal times when the spiritual state of the kingdom was well.
In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex, the titular king, in his pursuit to restore peace and health to the kingdom, vows to eliminate the plague, unaware of the dramatic irony that he is the source of the plague as the murderer of the previous king whom he seeks. Dear readers, replace these fictional characters with political figures from our country and you will savour the cerebral treat of our national political allegory. This departure and arrival, however, is signalled by ‘the aliens’.
M Nadeem Nadir
Kasur
Published in The Express Tribune, December 6th, 2023.
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