Characters In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia, And Claudius

Shakespeare uses tragedy plays that delight the audience by displaying the characters’ flaws that bring them to their destruction. This is very accurately presented in one of his plays Hamlet where William Shakespeare uses the characters: Hamlet, Ophelia, and Claudius to show how they become the victim of their own flaws. Hamlet becomes a victim to his own inability to take actions against King Claudius.While, Ophelia becomes a victim of her emotions and dependency on other characters and King Claudius becomes a victim of his greed to achieve more power. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the character flaws of Hamlet, Ophelia and Claudius lead to their downfall throughout the play. First of all, Hamlet who is the protagonist of

It is seen that women in the Elizabethan era do not have a much free will and the women depend on men for telling them how they should act. Hamlet reacts to Ophelia’s betrayal by mentioning that, “Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell” (3.1.127-130). Ophelia is losing Hamlet’s trust due to her dependency on Polonius and Claudius when she shares Hamlet’s private love letters with Polonius and obeying his advice to stay away from Hamlet. Moreover, Ophelia even plays a part in the plan to test Hamlet to see if he is insane just because the king and her father ask her to, not caring how would Hamlet feel. Because of these reasons,Hamlet is telling Ophelia that nunnery is the only place where she will be faithful and cause the least amount of damage. This quote also conveys a theme of betrayal in the play, where Ophelia betrays her true love, Hamlet.Therefore, the attitude towards woman in the Elizabethan era is the reason why Ophelia betrays Hamlet . After her father’s death, Ophelia emotionally goes mad and sings, “He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone. At his head is a patch of green grass, And at his feet there is a tombstone. Oh, ho!”(4.5.27-30). Ophelia goes mad because she realizes the double loss of

Claudius expresses some guilt towards his horrifying deed when he mentions, "That cannot be, since I am still possess 'd/ Of those effects for which I did the murder/ My crown, mine own ambition and my queen" (3.3.54-56). King Hamlet shows his guilt at first but then he realizes he does not need to be forgiven, for he is the King now and his possession is of more importance than his morals.Claudius ' ambition for power only pushes the plot of the play further. Claudius’ greediness for power also foreshadows his downfall as his greed leads him to never think about the consequence of his actions .Therefore,the character Claudius shows the theme of greed throughout the play. Claudius even forgets his own morals as a king because of his selfishness for power and seen at the end of the play when he says, “Gertrude, do not drink” (5, 2, 286). After Gertrude drinks from Hamlet’s cup, he said “(aside) It is the poisoned cup. It is too late” (5.2,288). This quote illustrates that not only does the crown stops Claudius from doing the right, moral things, but also, he chooses the crown over his love for Gertrude. The example of Claudius in the play Hamlet is very similar to the character Macbeth in the play Macbeth because of the fact that Claudius and Macbeth share the same flaw which is their greed for power. The demise of both Claudius and Macbeth is very similar due