On the hand, there lies Claudius. The reader has just learned that he was willing to kill his own brother to become king. Murder is a horrible thing, but killing your own brother for your own selfish needs is far beyond horrible. When learning this, in combination with feel bad for Hamlet, the reader is left hating Claudius for what he has done. Additionally, this is a very important scene in the play.
He plays on Laertes’ hunger for revenge on his father’s killer and uses Laertes’ feelings to achieve his goal. By this we see Claudius accomplish objectives by controlling people around him. Besides manipulation, Claudius achieves much by sinful acts. During the course of the play, Claudius breaks two of the Ten Commandments. The first is “you shall not kill” and this is broken by his crime of killing his brother.
He also tells the murderers that Banquo is blameworthy for their tragic, unhappy lives. After angering the murderers, Macbeth switches to a more sarcastic tone and manipulates the murderers so they will feel like they need to prove themselves men, worthy of Macbeth’s presence. By asking questions, Macbeth leaves a gap between him and the murderers and waits for them to fill it. He asks “Are you so gospeled/ To pray for this good man and for his issue/ Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave/ And beggared yours forever? (3.1.98-101).
It seems that Hamlet does not want to extract revenge and he regrets promising the ghost that he will do so, “O cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right! (I.v.28). Hamlet has many opportunities to kill Claudius throughout the course of the play. Hamlet considers killing Claudius while he is confessing his sins. Hamlet then does what he is good at and reconsiders his actions.
But later on, we discover Hamlet is not mad, and that it was all just an act. He puts back on his shoes, and the killing begins. Hamlet is only crazy in the purpose of fooling his step-uncle, to confess to killing the king. Hamlet craves the vengeance, and is successful in a way Claudius ends up paying for his deed. But at the end, everyone loses and dies except Horatio.
In this essay I will consider the significance of Act III scene I. Before the scene, Hamlet has been contemplating suicide. He also gathered a number of players to act in his “Dumb show”. Polonius has just begun to hatch a plan of spying on Hamlet from behind a curtain. His scene is crucial to the play as it hints at Claudius’s indiscretion and Hamlet’s first outward rejection of Ophelia.
The personality traits of insanity and intellectuality also contribute greatly to the death of Hamlet. Hamlet’s tragic flaw is his procrastination. Without a doubt, Hamlet portrays procrastination and indecisiveness multiple times in the play. The ghost of Hamlet’s father visits him in the beginning of the play informing Hamlet that he was murdered by his own brother, Claudius: “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life/ Now wears the crown”(I.v.44,45). Furthermore, Shakespeare exhibits how Hamlet chose to devise a plan of acting mad, rather than avenging his father’s death immediately, progressing to his demise.
Claudius on the other hand has decided to take his position on the throne by marrying Gertrude in the short time span since the king’s death which is seen as a dishonourable act by Hamlet. We can see that Hamlet does not just want to kill Claudius for his own satisfaction but also for the sake of honour. He wants to redeem his father as he has been told that Claudius has killed him using a cowardly method, the poison in the ear, and during the time in that era it was seen as a cowardly tactic and therefore dishonourable. Laertes also seeks vengeance on Hamlet for his own father as well going as far as doing a dishonourable act of poisoning his sword in what is supposedly a friendly fencing match. Even today honour still matters a great deal, being honest, doing what you believe is right and
Deadly sins The seven deadly sins are renowned for a reason, which is that just one of them can drive a person insane. Greed and envy together can lead a person into doing immoral and unjustified deeds. In the play "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, Claudius is the villain who contradicts Knight's The Embassy of Death because Claudius's actions and behavior result from his innate greed for wealth and envy of true love that his brother King Hamlet had; on the other hand, Knight views that his actions were forced upon him due to Hamlet's unstable mentality. (wrap up the thesis statement, condense to the main point. You don't need to make a comparison, but pick which view you agree with, Knight or Shakespeare's, or make it into 2 separate sentences.
The demised king commissioned Hamlet to execute revenge against Claudius. Hamlet willingly accepted. As the plot advances, one tragic event follows another, all of which resulted directly or indirectly due to some form of treachery. The story depicts episodes of deep passion motivated by raft, jealousy and sadness over death and lost love. To name a few of the convoluted incidents, Hamlet was alienated from his beloved girlfriend, Ophelia.