I wholeheartedly agree that Shakespeare brilliantly portrays a world in which deception and false appearances dominate. The masterfully crafted setting of Elsinore is a rotten cesspool of lies and deceit, filled with characters masquerading as honest and regarding over obsequiousness and espionage as perfectly moral practices. Nothing is ever as it seems and the dishonesty sweeps up even those opposed to it. Polonius is certainly the embodiment of sycophantic falsity in this play. He is constantly trying to ingratiate himself with others and is repeatedly seen to be prying into the business of others, which ironically leads to his demise. He deems it acceptable to spy on and spread lies about his son, reasoning "Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth: and thus do we of wisdom and of reach, with windlasses and with assays of bias, by indirections find directions out". He also doesn 't see anything wrong with using his daughter to gain information about Hamlet, with his plan "At such a time I 'll loose my daughter to him. Be you and I behind an arras then, mark the encounter". Finally, he suggests "Let his Queen-mother all alone entreat him to show his grief. Let her be round with him and I 'll be placed, so please you, in the ear of all their conference". It is fitting that he died as he …show more content…
Claudius tries and fails to pray for forgiveness, but Hamlet mistakes this for repentance. Because of this, he decides to "trip him that his heels ay kick at heaven" and delays in killing him. Unfortunately for him, his uncle is not truly remorseful for his sins, saying "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go". The king is deceptive without even trying, it is second nature to him. This disingenuity is so rooted in him and in the rest of the Danish nobility that it turns what should be a heartfelt plea for absolution into a merely superficial show of
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Show MoreDeception 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.
One of the major themes in the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, is deception. In Act I Scene IV, one of the characters, Marcellus, claims: “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark” (1.4.100). This is referring to the act of deception, where everything may look fine to the naked eye, but there are underlying problems occurring in the state of Denmark. In utilizing diction and metaphors, Shakespeare adds more depth to one of the major themes of the play. Metaphors are used by Shakespeare to compare Claudius to a deathly creature, while nobody realizes his mal intentions.
Polonius fuels Hamlet’s paranoia by pitting his friends against him through deception to make them garner information on Hamlet’s woes in his
Spying is an one of the many themes in William Shakespeare's “Hamlet” because so many of the characters are involved in it. By far the worst criminal is Polonius. He is the king's right-hand man, so we presume he has had some practice at it. But, he spies even on his own children, by sending Reynaldo, his servant, to spy on his son, Laertes.
Deceit and deception are not the only themes in the story of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, but it is also a way certain characters, mainly Hamlet himself, use to carry out their own personal gain. The focus will mainly be on the main character as he is the best example for a character using deception to his own ends. Hamlet is a very odd and curious character. He does not seem very ambitious, but actually, he is. He uses the tool of deception, under the disguise of moral justice, to seek revenge for his father’s death.
Polonius is willing to spy on pretty much anyone so that he can knows more details about those close to him. He spies on his son Laertes and is willing to slander him without giving it a second thought when he tells Reynaldo, “to make inquiry of his behaviour” (II.i.3-4). Polonius wants Reynaldo to both spy on Laertes and to hurt his image, so that he can learn about his son’s character. Claudius betrays Gertrude by not telling her about the poisoned cup soon enough. He does not want her to drink the poison but she doesn’t know about it until it is too late, “Gertrude, do not drink.
First of all, King Claudius’s ambition to become the next King of Denmark causes him to lose his conscience. As King Hamlet’s ghost reveals the truth of his death, he anguishes, “Thus was I [King Hamlet], sleeping, by a brother’s hand, Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched” (1.5.81-82). The throne of Denmark motivates King Claudius to slay his own biological brother to succeed King Hamlet’s “crown”. His desire to gain power has overwhelming covered up his moral values.
Deception comes in many forms and can be seen in all kind of ways but mainly when someone purposely causes someone to believe something that isn 't true to gain a personal advantage. Many authors use this tactic in their plays books and other literary work like in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the author uses the technique of deception to mislead Claudius, Gertrude, himself, Ophelia and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spare their feelings and to carry out a crime. Hamlet uses deception throughout the novel, but one way is to distract everyone from his true intention which is to gather information against Claudius to prove he killed his father. Shakespeare contributes all this back into his work by making each character in the play enact on some form of deceit to uncover the obscure truth.
When Hamlet’s father returns to Denmark as a ghost, he tells Hamlet that Claudius murdered him. Hamlet listens closely, and when his father tells him to take revenge for his death he says “Haste me to know ’t, that I, with wings as swift, as meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge.” This shows Hamlet is eager to take revenge for his father’s death. He becomes obsessed, trying to avenge his father’s death. This causes him to inadvertently kill Polonius, an innocent victim.
To be or not to be morally ambiguous is to have the lack of coherence in making moral life decisions. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, the main character Hamlet goes through a great transformation. Hamlet seeks revenge toward Claudius who he believes killed his father for the throne. In many of Shakespeare’s play there is always a hero and a villain, but in Hamlet, Hamlet plays a pivotal role because he can be viewed as both the hero and the villain. Hamlet is seen as a morally ambiguous character due to the decisions he makes throughout the plot of the novel that ends up leading him to his demise.
This aids the reader in analyzing the motives for each of the intricate characters and how every action has a motive that can tie back to Hamlet’s grand scheme which is to get revenge for the kingdom overtaken by an authority figure who did not earn that title, honor his father’s legacy that is taken from him in the crossfire of jealousy, and for the good of Denmark. Between the murder of King Hamlet and Polonius, Ophelia’s death, and the disloyalty of many characters, we enable ourselves to see the mood of confusion
The Prince has a legitimate obligation to avenge his father’s murder and thus restore the status quo; nonetheless, the murderer is the sovereign himself, which leaves him no option but even to take the law into his own hands to achieve through revenge. Hamlet perceives it is wrong to kill a human being as he is a Christian. Moreover, the Prince is very careful which he has been readily condemned for testing his suspicions and trying to find the proof to demonstrate Claudius killed his father. Another admirable characteristic of Hamlet is his extreme intelligence. Javed also states that “[Hamlet] confuses the evidence of his own eyes and common sense with that of the Ghost and must now resort to complicated indirect tactics of observations.
Deception is an essential element in any tragedy. Its' affects on the lives of the characters could be destructive or benign. In William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark deceit proves to be the very foundation of the play. Shakespeare builds on this idea of deceit between the characters, from the very beginning. The deceit that is practiced is imposed on others as well as self inflicted ultimately leading to a tragic ending.
The story of a young man by the name of Hamlet has been told since it was first written in the early 1600s. The timeless classic tells the tale of Prince Hamlet, who discovers that his mother had wed his uncle, two months prior to his father’s passing. He visits the throne in Denmark because he is disgusted at the act of incest, where the ghost of his deceased father confronts him, insisting that he was murdered by Claudius, the new king. Hamlet is enraged, and he becomes obsessed with the idea of proving the crime so that he can obtain revenge against Claudius (Crowther). Despite the myriad of themes that circulate throughout the Shakespearean play, many do not realize one hidden yet extensive theme: actions and their consequences.
In the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the title character Hamlet’s mind is violently pulled in divergent directions about the morals of murder. He feels an obligation to avenge his father’s death and thinks that it may be excused, since it is a case of “an eye of an eye.” But he is conflicted because the Bible has also taught him that murder is a sin and revenge should be left to God. Hamlet’s struggle to interpret this moral dilemma and his indecision, together are the ultimate cause of all the tragedy in the play; this internal conflict illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole: that murder, greed, and revenge are sins, no matter the reason, and procrastination is very detrimental.