Are You Machiavellians Forgive Me 'Cruel Murder'?

Niloofar Sedigh Sarvestani Dr. McAdams HON 171 November 30, 2015 Claudius, The Machiavellian Prince November 30, 2015 Thesis Machiavelli argues that a true leader - The prince - must be both the lion and the fox; Claudius is cunning like the fox and feared by the people. Claudius possesses many qualities of a Machiavellian prince, such as killing King Hamlet and taking the kingdom as his own, but makes the fault of not getting rid of Hamlet. Instead Claudius insists that Hamlet stay with him and his mother as well which ultimately results in his downfall. Claudius didn't kill all those who were entitled to the throne; instead he let the queen and her son, Hamlet live.

Likewise, when Hamlet approaches Claudius in III, with the intent of killing him, he notices that Claudius is on his hands and knees praying and repenting his sins. Hamlet states, “Now might I do it pat. now he is a-praying;/ And now I’ll do’t: And so he goes to heaven:/

The ocean was unstable. Now, it was calm and glimmering with soft ripples, and at other times, the waves thrashed with crushing force. Hamlet stared into the depths of it. His stepfather, Claudius was the source of all the trauma that he had suffered. He still prevails as the King of Denmark, but only Hamlet knew that he was an ambitious murderer.

Hamlet’s Tragic Flaw A tragedy is supposed to arouse the emotions of the audience in a way that makes them feel hopeful. The hero of the story must be of some sort of royalty, so that they can suffer from their conflict. A tragic hero more than likely has a certain problem or conflict that he has to face. The conflict could be either self-inflicted or created by nature. In the tragedy Hamlet, Hamlet’s conflict was cause by his own emotions and flaws.

Deception is a common tool among people of the world. For as long as we have communicated, we have worked our way around truths. The art of deception is very intricate and fragile, having to be planned carefully. In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, several characters use deception to get their own way. Three of them who made use of it are Claudius, Laertes, and Hamlet.

Forgettable Heros In the Shakespeare 's play Hamlet Polonius is the tragic hero. Hamlet 's describes a person “who was in life a foolish prating knave. ”(Shakespeare 3.4.338) In the eyes of the reader what Polonius is doing is foolish.

Deception: the act of deceiving someone. Throughout The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark deception is a prominent theme. Hamlet uses deception to get revenge on Claudius and restore his father’s honor. In the process of this Hamlet ends up deceiving and hurting the others around him ultimately causing the end of a family’s rule and existence.

In the tragedy of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the dysfunctional relationships amongst family members is emphasized through the use of reoccurring parallelism between the conflicts that occur in Polonius’ family and the royal family’s conflicts. For instance, the lack of trust that Polonius and Claudius have for their sons leads them both to commission spies to strategically find out information about them. For instance, Polonius asks Reynaldo to inquire on the behaviour of his son, Laertes, by spreading false rumours to his acquaintances, in order to see if any of them counters those false claims. He informs him that through doing this, “your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth / And thus do we of wisdom and of reach / With windlasses

I. Machiavelli In his famous work the Prince Niccolo Machiavelli exposes what it takes to be a good prince and how only this good price and keep control over his state. There are many different qualities that make a man a good ruler but there are some that are more essential than others. In this work Machiavelli stresses the importance of being a warrior prince, a wise prince, and knowing how to navigate the duality of virtù and vices. Without these attributes there was no way that a prince could hold together their state and their people.

"He who does not know how to deceive does not know how to rule," claimed Rafael Leonidas Trujillo as he executed thousands and manipulated millions to keep his power as the cruel dictator of the Dominican Republic. “To rule,” as stated by Trujillo appears to carry various interpretations for different people, but shares a common, and murderous, definition by Trujillo and King Claudius, from Shakespeare's play Hamlet, during their time in power. Despite their differences, Claudius and Rafael Trujillo represent the combination of intelligence, manipulation, and desire destined to end in catastrophe. Plotting to take power with no opposition and hold onto it involves a certain amount of wit that both Trujillo and Claudius believed they possessed. King Claudius kept his loathsome secrets