Claudius's Corruption In The Royal Shakespeare

On William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, after the assassination of his father, Hamlet thinks he is living in a world full of corruption and deceit, where everything is falling apart and everyone is against him. An imminent, exaggerated, and passionate love for his mother is his main feature. Although others argue that Hamlet’s obsession to murder Claudius is strictly to claim revenge for his father’s death, it is Hamlet’s obsessive desire to possess his mother in an unhealthy and, perhaps incestuous, relationship. Hamlet also appears jealous of Claudius, his father-uncle, jealous of him for having Gertrude and for owning the crown. He lives a love-hate relationship with his mother. He is full of anger towards her, but at the same time he

  In the first three acts of the play Hamlet, King Claudius go through a subtle, but defined change in character.  Claudius role in the play begins as the newly corrinated king of Denmark.  The former king, King Hamlet, was poisoned by his brother, Claudius, while he was asleep.  Claudius, however, made it known to everyone that the king died of a snakebite in the garden, and thus no one knew of the murder that had just taken place making his murder the perfect crime.  The only problem that Claudius must deal with now is his conscience.

Shakespeare's Presentation Of Claudius In Hamlet 'Hamlet' opens with the death of Old King Hamlet, Father of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The new king, Claudius, brother of the previous king has married Gertrude, the dead man's widow and has taken the throne. Shakespeare presents Claudius as the plays 'damned smiley villain' although he does allow him some redeeming features; leading an audience to view him as a complex and contradictory figure within the play. After Old King Hamlet dies Claudius is crowned king of Denmark and talks to the people as though he has sympathy and is saddened by his brother's death 'and that it is us befitted to bear out hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom

The Tragedy of Hamlet is a famous work written by Shakespeare in the late 14th century. Within the story, there are many characters who appear to be very “off”. Hamlet seemingly goes insane, The King is on a power trip, Ophelia goes insane and potentially kills herself, and the Queen remarries almost immediately. These are not behaviors normal humans show, and so I will be diagnosing King Claudius with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

The present King, Claudius, is questioning Hamlet’s odd behaviour because he feels Hamlet’s new and strange behaviour could be harmful to him and his position. So he asks Polonius, the Lord Chamberlain, to spy on Hamlet to resolve the matter. While hiding behind an arras in Gertrude’s room to listen to the dialogue between Ophelia and Hamlet, he reveals his location by calling out for help, Hamlet realizing there is someone behind the tapestry and suspecting it to be Claudius withdraws his sword and stabs the hidden Polonius resulting in polonius’s death, which assisted in ophelia going mad, and also Laertes, Polonius’s son seeking revenge on hamlet, which makes Hamlet’s quest for honour and certainty even harder to complete.

Throughout history, literature has been able to captivate and enchant audiences of all backgrounds. Words have an undeniable ability to sway a crowd’s emotions and truly affect them. William Shakespeare, one of the most revered writers of all time, had such skills. His plays are timeless pieces of art considered the foundations of the English literature. Shakespeare’s most dramatic and infamous tragedy, Hamlet, has earned its place as a cornerstone. In the play, Shakespeare poetically writes speeches that show the true colours of the characters, whether good or devious. The main antagonist, Claudius, shows his treachery to the Elizabethan audience, through his speech to his wife Gertrude. Claudius’ conversation with Gertrude in Act 4,

Palmer 2him. This is just one example of how Hamlet is inactive and is always putting off killing Claudius. Even though Hamlet is inactive when it comes to killing Claudius, he is very impulsive at times. “How now, a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead (stabs his sword through the arras and kills Polonius)” (Act 3, Scene 4). In this scene, Hamlet thinks it is the King behind the tapestry, but instead of looking and finding out who it is for sure, he stabs Polonius. Hamlet acted impulsively in this scene and did not think about what he was doing. Hamlet never figures out how to deal with

In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, various characters manipulate others in order to gain power and fulfill their personal desires. The character who portrays the most immense manipulation is King Claudius, the brother of the late King Hamlet. Thus far, Claudius advertises himself as a sensible, honorable man who lives to serve the greater good, yet his manipulation exposes his dubious intentions, leaving him with an unfortunate fate.

Claudius is paranoid by the death of Polonius and tries to find the body but cannot. Claudius asks Hamlet where he has taken Polonius and After some sarcastic and funny replies, Hamlet says that he took Polonius “up the stairs into the lobby.” The king guards to find the him and Claudius tells Hamlet that he is leaving to go to England, Hamlet says he dosent want to leave anymore and leaves Claudius to think about how he will get rid of hamlet. He wrote letters asking the English king, to kill Hamlet.

Another reason why the killing of Claudius is justified is the fact he has directly caused the mental state we see hamlet in. Hamlets main worries are the death of his father; caused by Claudius. His mother marrying Claudius and finally everyone moving on so quick from the death of old Hamlet. (Not directly Claudius but being called a little girl didn’t help) All of this complied has pushed hamlet to the brink of suicide and to repair his mental state he feels he must revenge his

To wash it white as snow” he is saying that he cant get it off, that

Within the close proximity of his father’s death, Hamlet’s mother has remarried to her late husband’s brother, Claudius. In this monologue, Claudius insults Hamlet’s continuous misery for his father frequently in order to improve his self confidence. He accuses Hamlet’s “obstinate condolement” (1.2.93) to be “of impious stubbornness” (94). Claudius believes Hamlet’s stubborn and constant grief is insulting to God’s natural cycle of life and is a “will most incorrect to heaven” (95), meaning that his grief is not out of true sadness, but instead defiance. It is ironic that Claudius accuses Hamlet of being disrespectful to both God and heaven, while he is married to his dead brother’s wife.

In Act IV of Shakespeare's play titled Hamlet, King Claudius is shown to be extremely manipulative as he deceives numerous different characters throughout the play. Firstly, Claudius manipulates Gertrude by tricking her into thinking that he actually cares about Hamlet and his well-being. In the beginning of act IV, Claudius states, “His liberty is full of threats to all—To you yourself, to us, to everyone. Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered? It will be laid to us, whose providence. Should have kept short, restrained and out of haunt, This mad young man. But so much was our love, We would not understand what was most fit, But, like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulging, let it feed. Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?” (IV. i. 12-21). Claudius proclaims that he will be held responsible for Hamlet’s actions. Despite the obviousness and the pathetically over-exaggerated speech, Gertrude falls for this and agrees to send Hamlet away to England for Hamlet’s own “protection”. Claudius does this because he wants Hamlet to be “accidentally” killed by the prince of England so that Hamlet is no longer a threat to Claudius. However, Gertrude obviously has no idea about any of this. This shows that Gertrude is pretty clueless when it comes to situations like this whereas Claudius is actually quite intelligent as he is able to trick Gertrude easily. Additionally, he manipulates Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by making them spy on Hamlet and lure him

Born 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom, William Shakespeare became one of the uttermost iconic poets, playwrights, and pre-eminent dramatists of his era, and also of all time, bringing great attention to the dramatic arts industry. His works consisted of umpteen comedies and tragedies written in a conventional style with intricate metaphors and rhetorical phrases. Furthermore, several of his characters and plots resemble genuine humans with their wide span of emotions and conflicts among one another. One of his more popular tragedies includes Hamlet. In his 14th to 15th century play, Hamlet, written in 1599 to 1601, the characters in and around the royal palace of Elsinore, Denmark, face ample conflicts, followed by different physical and mental methods of reacting and dealing with their inner and outer consciences. Early on in the play, Marcellus, an officer who first sees a ghost of Hamlet Sr. in the royal palace after his recent death, states “Something rotten in the state of Denmark,” (I, iv, 99) foreshadowing the expanding corruption within Elsinore, starting with selfish greed, evolving into manipulation of people, and resulting in unprincipled revenge.

No surprise, this final Act of Hamlet is as mysterious, ambiguous, and controversial as those that precede it. The play begins rather straightforwardly, if ironically, as a revenge tragedy – Old Hamlet’s ghost spurs his son to revenge – and it would seem that Act Five, like the Act Fives of all major revenge tragedies preceding Hamlet, should fulfill this initial plotline. Indeed, in Act Five Hamlet kills Claudius – finally. But he does so in such a roundabout, half-cocked, off-hand way, we wonder whether this really counts as revenge. The death of Claudius certainly lacks the poetic justice that vengeance seems to require. What on earth is Shakespeare trying to do with this strange play – why doesn’t he give it a proper ending?