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Theme Of Betrayal In Hamlet

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In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the theme of betrayal is a major focus of the play. All the characters turn their backs on one another at some point in the play; this leads to misjudgments, lying, characters being un loyal to one another and untruthful as well as acting out of pure rage rather than using logical thought to think things through. The act of lying to one another, being un loyal and plotting each other’s own deaths, lead all the characters to their eventual downfall and death. Betrayal usually associates itself with the aspect of death in Shakespeare’s plays and in Hamlet’s case, this is no exception. There are many examples to this. First Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother married Hamlet’s uncle Claudius after only three months of his father’s death. This not only showed disloyalty towards Hamlet Jr. and his father, but it could also be seen as being disloyal and betrayal towards the people of Denmark by not showing any respect. Never would one imagine that she would betray someone like that. The first …show more content…

Through Hamlet’s soliloquies, an audience is exposed to hi belief that Gertrude has betrayed his father. In Elizabethan times, Gertrude’s marriage to Hamlet may have been regarded as incestuous and unlawful. Thus, Hamlet refers to the “sheets” of marriage as “incestuous”. However, Hamlet continual preoccupation with the “speed” in which Gertrude has not undergone a significant period of mourning. Conventionally, a period of mourning of one year would have been expected, whereas Gertrude remarried in two months. Hamlet likens Gertrude’s actions to that of “Niobe” and by drawing such comparisons emphasizes his beliefs in hypocrisy of her actions, thus betraying her deceased husband by marrying her former husband’s brother, she also betrays the late king

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