King Claudius Character Analysis

Hamlet kills Polonius and Gertrude becomes scared as to what is going to happen with Hamlet. Claudius betrays her trust by taking advantage of it and takes matter into his own hands. Claudius solution to the problem is to have Hamlet sent to England, where he is going to be safe from the law and will not have to deal with any consequences for his actions. " O Gertrude, come away! The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch. But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed. We must, with all out majesty and skill, Both countenance and excuse" (4.1.28-32). Claudius makes Gertrude believe he is setting this up because he wants to protect Hamlet. But even though the audience knows the real reason as to why he is doing this. He is sending Hamlet to England to be killed. " By letters congruing to that effect, The present death of Hamlet" (4.3.66-67).

  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

In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Hamlet, a studious young man and Prince of Denmark, struggles to face the death of his father and the task to kill his father’s murderer, Claudius. He was once known as a charming, smart young man before his father’s death. However, Hamlet experiences depression and anger at the world, causing him to look outwardly on society but failing to look inwardly on himself. The death of his father and the task for vengeance leads him to question whether or not he should follow through in killing Claudius. He becomes a man of thought rather than a man of action. In addition, the delay of King Claudius’ murder leads the readers to believe that he wishes not to kill him; he

It is in Act one scene two that we are first introduced to the character of Claudius. The impression made by him is that of a powerful and controlled man who is respected by most. His mannerisms of speech are graceful and are nothing less than the words of a king, 'to bear our heats with grief, and our whole kingdom.' Claudius is presented to us by

Beyond Claudius’ need for admiration, he also tends to disregard the feelings of people around him. This is shown in a similar way as his need for admiration, being that he kills his brother to gain power. Such a selfish action will obviously impact those around King Hamlet, but Claudius disregard that and simply does it for his own gain. He doesn’t think about how Hamlet’s death will affect Gertrude, young Hamlet, Polonius, or anyone else close to him. In the aftermath of this, instead of helping Hamlet through the hard time following his fathers sudden death, he tells Hamlet he’s not a man for mourning for such a long time. Staying on the topic of the death of a father, Claudius uses Polonius’ death to get Laertes to want to avenge his

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.

This, in turn, exploits Hamlet’s similar flaw of ego and furthers the conflict, but what’s more, it illustrates Claudius’ sheer audacity and lack of repentance. He continues to try to cover up the sin and appease Hamlet into complacency rather than confess and ask for forgiveness. In a mark of pure arrogance, Claudius tells Hamlet to “throw to earth / This unprevailing woe and think of us / As of a father”, conceitedly requesting that Hamlet merely forget the murder and replace his father with the murderer himself (I, ii, 110-112). Similarly, instead of directly confronting Hamlet about his mental condition, the king more or less hires Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on the prince, again cementing his smug mindset. The king does not believe he can be caught or, rather, that Hamlet is competent enough to figure out his plan and foil him. Claudius, too, thinks only of himself after Hamlet’s inadvertent killing of Polonius, pondering “how shall this bloody deed be answered? / It will be laid to us” instead of considering the ramifications of the murder with respect to Hamlet (4.1.17-18). The other two paper-thin traps the king hatches only reinforce his failure to see beyond the apparent; his attempt to deport Hamlet to England and have him killed reeks of treachery and, luckily, Hamlet realizes the king’s subterfuge, crushing the plot and flipping it back on him. Claudius remains steadfast in his efforts to remove Hamlet, going so far as to set up a

Claudius is the other major example of ambition in the story, as shown through his drastic measures taken to assure that no one discovers that he killed the King and used his death as an opportunity to take up the crown. It is revealed to Hamlet by his father’s ghost that Claudius killed the former ruler in his own garden by pouring poison into his ear. This is very characteristic of Shakespeare’s tragedies, characters will kill each other off for their own ambitious agendas without hesitation for morals or law and Claudius fits into this trend perfectly. To further ensure that his status as king is not compromised, he seduces the King’s wife, Gertrude, and attempts to get Hamlet to forget his father by calling his grief childish and a hindrance to his role as the prince (365). The King’s ghost informs Hamlet that Gertrude was one of the most virtuous women alive and wouldn’t have taken lightly to his sudden death, so it is apparent that Claudius took extreme measures to get Gertrude on his side. To go through all this work to ensure that he remained in power proves that Claudius was just as ambitious to achieve power as Hamlet was to remove him from it.

Claudius is ultimately revealed as the antagonist of Hamlet because he removed the good from his life, becoming the prime opposition of Hamlet. He is then faced with the king’s direction to avenge his father’s death by doing anything it takes to reveal the crimes of Claudius. Although not the chief antagonist, another opposition to Hamlet is his mother, whose crime is also revealed by the deceased king Hamlet. The king tells Hamlet how his wife betrayed him when he comments, “whose love was of that dignity that it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine” (I.vi.786-791). Queen Gertrude has also crushed Hamlet’s belief of his mother’s faithfulness by forgetting her vows and looking to Claudius’ gifts and love when she should be remembering king Hamlet. Both Claudius and Gertrude threw Hamlet’s integral foundations out the window, leaving Hamlet infuriated and ready to do what it takes to avenge his father’s death and accuse his opposing family of their crime against him.

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

Unlike Hamlet though, Claudius thinks about his actions because he wants to make sure he makes a decision that will be the best for him. He knows if he just kills Hamlet the people of the kingdom will turn on him because of the love they all share for Hamlet. He sends in Rozencrantz and Guildenstern to find out what is wrong with Hamlet so that Claudius can decide what to do from there. His decision to send Rozencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on and talk to Hamlet is illustrated when he says, “So by your companies/To draw him on pleasures, and to gather/So much as from occasion you may glean/[Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus]/That opened lies within our remedy” (II.II.14-18). Claudius and Hamlet are both extremely sly and cunning and posses similarities with their ability to act, but this could merely be because of the education they both have which has brought them common sense and the ability to think before acting. One major difference of their ability to act is when Hamlet acts on impulse and kills Claudius’ advisor Polonius. Hamlet unlike Claudius has so much anger built up inside of him because of his father’s death and it kept building and building until he finally let it out when talking to his mother about Claudius. He heard a noise from behind a curtain which was Polonius’, and without thinking Hamlet stabs him releasing some of his pent up aggression. Hamlet shows the anger he has within when he says, “A bloody deed-almost as

One of my major goals in the creative section was to depict Claudius prior to the murder of King Hamlet. Within the depiction, I had to decide on how to portray Claudius’ intentions. Although he is fundamentally wrong in belief that King Hamlet is poisoning Denmark, Claudius seeks to improve Denmark, and take what he believes to be rightfully his. The key aspect is the idea that the kingdom belongs to him, an idea which I believe consumes Claudius to the point of regicide. At the root of it, Claudius’ malignant decisions only stem from his extreme jealousy, leaving him in a morally ambiguous place as far as his intentions are concerned.

William Shakespeare’s use of Claudius’ Character to Help Clarify that of Hamlet’s Through Their Consciences and Their Morals in Hamlet

The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark is William Shakespeare’s most well-known and analyzed work of literature. As the play unfolds, Hamlet has to face the difficult task of seeking revenge against his uncle, Claudius, for the murder of his father, King Hamlet. Hamlet has captured audiences and readers for centuries and has caused much inquiry and debate. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a very psychologically complex character. Throughout the play, Hamlet conveys two different sides; the young, emotional and intelligent prince, who is committed to honesty and loyalty; and his destructive and impulsive side which led to the death of Polonius and nonchalantly sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths as