How Does Polonius Change In Hamlet

Shakespeare’s Polonius is often not viewed as one of the more popular characters in Hamlet, even within the play itself he is often dismissed by others because of his constant and rather comical babbling. However, Polonius is the keystone that is holding everyone else together, his ending can ultimately be seen as the first domino that triggers everyone else's. His death is used for another’s gain, but what did Polonius attempt to gain from the others throughout the play? Polonius’ character doesn’t change within the play from what Claudius describes him “As a man faithful and honorable” (2.2.139). He can be seen as a loving and protecting father who gives fatherly advice when having a father to son talk with Laertes, when asking his daughter

Although he gives good advice, Polonius does not practice what he preaches, not only is he always excessively speaking throughout the play but to flatter his ownself he openly talks about his son’s bad habits to his uninterested server ““But if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild, / addicted so and so”’(2.1.20-21). Polonius chooses to send Reynaldo to spy on his son “You shall do marvelous wisely, good Reynaldo, / before you visit him, to make inquire / of his behavior” (2.1.3-5) to make sure that Laertes “... does not do anything to endanger his status or the status of his family…”(Cardullo 492). Polonius shows that he is not only controlling of his children but, has a lack of trust for others and is constantly prying. Polonius uses Ophelia as his pawn in order to find the reasoning behind Hamlet’s behavior. His talk with Ophelia is extremely important because “...Polonius who first suggests that Hamlet may be “mad” for love” with his daughter (Gierasch 701). He takes a personal matter between him and his daughter and in turn uses it against her “Polonius is blind to the implications in Hamlet’s words that bear directly upon his own sacrificial use of Ophelia. After ordering her to avoid

Here Hamlet calls Polonius “[A] Tedious old [fool] ” and refers to him as the fishmonger (2.2.237). It is clear that Hamlet lacks respect Polonius. Perhaps Polonius is crying for attention, more respect, or exert more power from Hamlet. “...Ophelia, Laertes, and Claudius all have high regard for Polonius. Hamlet disdains the man.” It seems as if he can place power over his own children but not necessarily anyone else. Polonius has similar characteristics to that of the classic “Igor” or Fritz character. He is the uncredited but needed sickick to the villain but that has little to no benefits however, he does it because he feels that he has must provide the honor for his family “How say you by that? Still harping on /my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; he said I / was a fishmonger. He is far gone. And truly, in my /youth, I suffered much extremity for love, very near / this” (2.2.204-09) because being the sidekick provides better opportunities and outer appearance than being known as the fishmonger. Polonius does most of the work with gaining information about Hamlet as Claudius stays hand off everything that can make him out to be the villain. In fact Claudius almost only uses the Polonius name to do the majority of his dirty work. By having Laertes attempt to kill Hamlet during a duel but also using Ophelia to get to Hamlet