How Is Horatio A Foil In Hamlet

All throughout the world, it is common to see many people, such as politicians, businessmen, everyday ordinary people, who have a hidden agenda, an ulterior motive, driving them towards an ultimate goal. Characters such as Hamlet, Claudius, and Polonius share this attribute amongst themselves, ultimately leading to their collective demise. Horatio, however, serves as a hypothetical foil to this theme, as everything that he does is in complete loyalty towards Hamlet through the course of the play. Deception is a major theme of Hamlet and life as it is trying to show that those who are deceptive, such as Claudius, Hamlet, and Polonius, suffer a bad event, while those who are candid, such as Horatio, preserve and sometimes are rewarded. Claudius' deception has more of a continuation rather than a beginning when the play begins, as his deception resulted in him killing his brother to gain the throne before Act 1 even begins. As a result of this he must continue on his deception

Polonius is similar to the Rosencrantz and Guildenstein except that instead of merely trying to procure information from Hamlet and deliver it Claudius, Polonius takes the information that he gleams and tries to spin it in a way that will benefit him. An example of this is how he perceives Hamlet's madness, not as grief for his father or an act, but instead as symptoms of being love-sick with Ophelia, Polonius' daughter. He even goes to extreme and dramatic lengths to prove this saying that he would have the King, "Take this from this if it be otherwise." (2.2.168). Eventually, Polonius is slain as a result of this greed driven deception, continuing the theme that deception brings