Free Hamlet Essays: The Naivete of Hamlet

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The Naivete of Hamlet

Keeping secrets keep you isolated from your friends and make you very lonely. Hamlet’s loneliness, false friends, and betrayals cause his downfall to a great extent. The court of Denmark is filled with spies: Claudius hires Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to spy on Hamlet; Polonius spies on Hamlet in Gertrude’s bedchamber; Polonius uses Ophelia as bait to spy on Hamlet. Hamlet is not a part of this deceit; he is honest. For example, Claudius suggests Hamlet is honest when he and Laertes are discussing their dual scheme; Ophelia believes Hamlet is honest and says, "What a noble mind here is o’erthrown!" (III; i; 157), referring to Hamlet’s antic disposition, even though he has been insulting her for two previous acts. His relationship with Horatio shows his true character, because of how much he trusts him. ("Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man as e’er my conversation coped withal" --III; ii; 59). Someone who is naïve is often taken advantage of in a hard, cold, deceitful world.

Having your stepfather get your best friends to spy on you must make you feel horrible. When Claudius hires Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (R&G) to spy on Hamlet,

I entreat you both…/…/

so by your companies

To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,

So much as from occasion you may glean,

Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus

That opened lies within our remedy. (II; ii; 10-18)

they confess to Hamlet that they were sent to spy on him. Hamlet shows this by saying, "Nay then I have an eye of you. –If you love me, hold not off." (II; ii; 301).

It is as though he were saying to them, ‘If you were really my friends, then you should tell me why you are so interested in everything I do.’ He later takes revenge on his friends, who are sent to spy on him when he is being sent to England. He opens the letter to the English government, and changes ‘kill my crazy son Hamlet’ to ‘kill these messengers’, and seals the letter back up with his fathers’ ring:

Without debatement further more or less,
He should those bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving time allowed/…/
I had my fathers signet in my purse,
Which was the model of the Danish seal…. (V; ii: 45-50)

Curiosity killed the cat. Polonius’ spying on Hamlet is what kills him.

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