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In Shakespeare’s tragic play Hamlet, an overwhelming and prevalent theme is quite persistent throughout. Each character, Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia and Hamlet, is unique, but they all have one big thing in common. Each of these characters appears as one thing, with one outlook, and one standpoint. On the contrary, these characters are entirely different on the inside. This “mask” theme, or how the characters portray themselves as one person on the outside and one different on the inside, can be experienced in almost every single scene of the play. Claudius, the backstabbing, murdering king seems to be a caring, kind, and friendly man. But he is different on the inside. What the other characters in the play see is not what the readers see. In reality he is cold and self-absorbed, but what do we know? This could be a mask too. The two women in the play, Gertrude and Ophelia, both use a mask to cover what is obvious in their lives, a tangle of deception, masking it so that they may continue their life as if cruelty was not part of their existence. And finally, Hamlet hides behind his madness, whether it is real or not, he is an indecisive and spiteful man. The many masks in Shakespeare’s story are the whole basis of it, rather than just a theme.
As the characters of Hamlet try to hide their secret intentions, the mask theme develops. Of course, Claudius is one of the most obvious. He poisoned and killed his brother, the former king, so that he himself could become king. Now he is the King of Denmark and married to Queen Gertrude, who was his brother’s wife. These awful and hideous crimes go unpunished simply because no one is aware that Claudius has done this. When he confronts people, he has to become a totally different person. He puts on a mask to hide who he really is. When doing this, he is no longer the cold and self-absorbed man that he really is, he transforms into a caring and kind man that does whatever he can to keep Gertrude by his side. And...