Both Laertes and Hamlet both have similar and unique personality traits. These two characters are essential parts to the structure and theme of this play. Laertes tends to be possibly, in my opinion, an earlier version of Hamlet. Laertes has a positive outlook on life and seems to make the best of his life. Hamlet on the other hand looks at life only for its negative qualities and it almost seems that Hamlet wants to have more bad things to look at and have a reason to be depressed about. His very first sentence, "A little more than kin, ....