The meaning of evil has changed throughout history. In today’s world, evil has become a hazy term. What is evil? Who is evil? Men like Osama Bin Laden have been described as the term 'evil' for their atrocities against humanity. Now it seems evil has an exclusively human meaning; when a person violates the rights of others on a massive scale, he or she is evil. In Shakespeare's time, the Renaissance period, evil had a similar, but altered meaning for people. Evil was a being that violated Christian moral codes. Therefore, a man such as Claudius, from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, a murderer and a ruthless manipulator, who uses "rank" deeds to usurp the thrown is in direct violation with the Elizabethan societal rules, and he is evil. Greed, …show more content…
ambition, and power cause Claudius to transgress laws of nature, which leads Denmark to rot from the inside. Claudius kills his family and marries his brother’s wife, which goes against familial laws.
King Hamlet's "foul and most unnatural murder" (Shakespeare I.v.31) tops Claudius' list of egregious sins. Using his mastery of manipulation, Claudius, the “incestuous” and “adulterate beast” managed to win the honorable queen Gertrude by using the “shameful lust [of her] will” (I.v.49…52-53). Claudius had to use verbal trickery to influence Gertrude into switching husbands that quickly after her husband’s death, which shows his true skill: lying convincingly. Claudius manages to validate his ascent to the throne by diverting attention away from him and to the attack by the young Fortinbras of Norway (I.ii.1-38). The most horrible of Claudius’ crimes is his lack of emotion over his traitorous fratricide. Claudius does not even give his late brother a word of respect; instead the focus is upon the future of Denmark. Claudius goes so far as to chastise Hamlet for his “unmanly grief” (I.ii.98), emphasizing that for the benefit of Denmark; all those affected by the death of King Hamlet should keep a strong façade. Later in Hamlet, Claudius begins to openly express his remorse and recognizes the immorality of his actions when he says himself: “O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;/ It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t, / A brother’s murder. Pray cannot I” (III.iii.40-42). He expresses his grief and sin in private but keeps a façade in front of the rest of the kingdom. Claudius is …show more content…
a ruthless and emotionless antagonist who breaks all the rules pertaining to moral codes. Claudius goes against divine laws by rebelling against the gods by taking the throne from King Hamlet. In the Renaissance period, the king was viewed as divine and therefore any action against the king was an action against God. Claudius dismisses God's right to control who the king is by committing a "murder most foul" (I.v.33), however he admits, "there's such divinity doth hedge a king" (IV.v.138). Claudius admits that God has power over the kingdom and chooses to break the laws of royal succession. Hamlet recognizes Claudius' evil nature beyond the murder of his father; Hamlet sees that Claudius is corrupting all of Denmark. Claudius' reign is compared to "an unweeded garden/That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature/ Possess it merely" (I.ii.139-141), his influence causes the destruction of everything that is pure around him. Claudius' contagious evil must be eliminated, and Hamlet feels he is the only man who can stop him. When Claudius usurps the throne and banishes Hamlet, he is going against political laws. Claudius’ lies are efficient enough to persistently deceive Hamlet and the rest of the kingdom. Despite Hamlet’s disgust with Claudius for marrying his mother Gertrude, and his view of Claudius as “a king of shreds and patches” (III.iv.117), Hamlet is not suspicious of Claudius as a murderer at first. The appearance of a ghost claiming to be Hamlet’s dead father first warns Hamlet to the actions of “that incestuous, that adulterate beast, / With witchcraft of his with, with the traitorous gifts” (I.v.49-50). And still, Hamlet remains hesitant to believe that Claudius was the murderer, and he waited for more evidence. Hamlet makes a plan that he thinks will “catch the conscience of the king” (II.ii.634). He succeeds in revealing Claudius’ guilt, but he does not take action. The effectiveness of Claudius’ manipulation of the royalty allows him to almost permanently hide his guilt, and if it weren’t for fate, he may never have been exposed. Evil is a very vague word that cannot be defined in a simple way, but William Shakespeare tries to embody the word evil with the sinister Claudius.
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Claudius is the ambitious antagonist who will do absolutely anything to become king and rule Denmark. Claudius commits fratricide, regicide, and deicide so that he could quench his thirst for success and power. As he ascends to top of the kingdom, he kills and tears down anyone in his way. Many things are rotten in the state of Denmark and it originates from the royalty, which greatly affects the well being of the state of Denmark. When thinking of this idea of a rotten royalty, it important to think about what is the cause of this rotting kingdom. Before Claudius claimed the throne, the kingdom was prosperous and beautiful environment. Claudius is the weed that kills everything that was once pure in Denmark. He causes all of the internal destruction, which causes Denmark to decay from the inside. Claudius breaks all laws for his evil and selfish plan of becoming the king and eventually spoils the whole
country.
Early on in Hamlet, a guard slightly mentions that there is “something rotten in the state of Denmark” (Shakespeare, I.iv.90). The tranquility of Denmark is suddenly shattered by Claudius’s marriage to Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, only a short time following the death of King Hamlet. To Hamlet was revealed the murder of his father and becomes determined to avenge his father’s death no matter the cost. This sets off a trail of pretending, backstabbing, plotting, luring, and deadly accidents that ultimately lead to a clash of hatred between the characters and the doom of Denmark. Shakespeare animates the characters with these sinful deeds and vengeance to illustrate that these corruptions strips the innocence and sanity in human kind. Had Hamlet not gone on a tangent and lost his mind about the murder of his father, there might not have been a domino effect of madness knocking down everyone else in this royal chain. Hamlet pretends to have app...
The new king of Denmark, Claudius allows us to analyze this theme of appearance versus reality. As many do not know the actual way elder Hamlet died, King Claudius acts as though he seems to care deeply about his brother and grieves over his death. Claudius feigns sadness over the loss of his brother when speaking to others, “and that it us befitted/ To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom/ To be contracted in one brow of woe” (Shakespeare I.2.2-4 ), but to the audience his lies are obvious. We know Claudius killed his brother to take the throne, and he doesn’t actually care nor grieve for his brother. His goal has been achieved, but he pretends he grieves along with his new wife and the people. Claudius sees his brother’s murder as heavenly because it helped him achieve his goal to become King,“O, my offence is a rank, it smells to heaven/ It hath the primal eldest curse upn’t, A brother’s murder” (Shakespeare 3.3.36-38). He is proud of the deed, and he sees it as a necessary act. It is clear that Claudius has a dark interior that the audience can see clearly when other characters are not present. Claudius also fakes the love he feels towards his nephew and stepson,
Throughout the play, Claudius faces an entanglement between having dictatorial authority and doing as he pleases, and listening to his kingdom in order to sustain his status. Claudius’s primary goal is to sustain his throne as the ruler of Denmark, and he’s willing to go through any means in order to achieve his goal. However, due to the questionable circumstances that led Claudius to attain the throne, he is required to temporarily sacrifice his desires at times in order to upheave his public appeal. At the beginning of the play, Claudius presents a speech to his courtiers, expressing his grief concerning Old Hamlet’s death. Additionally, he shares the news of his marriage with Gertrude, the Queen. Through the manipulative tone he uses during h...
Since the dawn of time, man has struggled fiercely over the internal conflict within himself between doing what is right for oneself as opposed to doing what is right for society in general. It is what I refer to as the good vs. evil complex. The play Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare somewhere between 1599 and 1603, presents a plethora of characters that are faced with the challenge of not allowing self-interest to reign supreme.
Claudius, the uncle of Prince Hamlet and the King in the play, has his secret guilty conscience exposed when he is shown a theatrical performance that mirrors the horrible situation he is in, causing his reality of death to be immediately determined by Hamlet. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet is told by the ghost of his father of how Claudius robbed him “of life, of crown, [and] of queen”; however, Hamlet cannot accuse Claudius of murder due to the fact that he has not revealed any sign of guilt to him, or to any other character in the play (I. V. 75). Shakespeare purposely uses an aside to reveal Claudius’ true emotions of how he believes his deed “is...ugly [and such a] / heavy burden” so that the audience can visualize how one hides
Hamlet’s struggle to re-order Denmark ultimately results in extreme chaos. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince Hamlet destroys Ophelia while feigning madness, mortally combats Laertes, who is avenging Polonius’s death, and fails to kill King Claudius, who contributes to Hamlet’s murder as well as the deaths of Gertrude and Laertes. Hamlet’s struggle to restore order in Denmark clearly results in these chaotic situations.
The Nature of Evil in William Shakespeare's Hamlet Works Cited Missing 'Hamlet' is a Shakespearean revenge tragedy, which was a strong, and entertaining form of drama popular in the Elizabethan era during which Shakespeare (1562-1616) lived. ' Hamlet', like many of Shakespeare's plays has been inspired by another famous tragedy, in this case, 'The Spanish Tragedy', a revenge play written by Thomas Kyd. The great political turbulence that was taking place in England with conspiracies against the Queen and those in power could also have prompted Shakespeare to write a play like 'Hamlet'. Though the play is made up of the stock conventions of a typical revenge tragedy - a murder, with the ghost of the murdered returning to a loved one, the delay in vengeance, mental disturbance of the avenger and finally, the avenger's death, Shakespeare has made 'Hamlet' original by focusing on the psychology and tragedy of the characters and the situations. The characters in the play are like real people, and even though the play was written centuries ago, readers can still relate to their mentality, sensitivity and reactions to situations.
These are two: Claudius' incest with the Queen, and his murder of his brother. Now it is of great importance to note the profound difference in Hamlet's attitude towards these two crimes. Intellectually of course he abhors both, but there can be no question as to which arouses in him the deeper loathing. Whereas the murder of his father evokes in him indignation and a plain recognition of his obvious duty to avenge it, his mother's guilty conduct awakes in him the intensest horror
He effectively fools everyone about the murder and plants the seed of death within the kingdom, bringing the ghost to speak to young Hamlet. Claudius poisons the throne with his unjust claim and as a result also poisons the whole kingdom. Hamlet tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, The state that Denmark is in directly relates to Claudius’ actions of murdering the king, which appears to be poisoning the kingdom. Claudius marries his own dead brother’s wife and gets away with it, creating corruption in the family and in turn poisoning all of Denmark. The royal family begins to fall apart, coinciding with the fall of the nation they rule, all because of Claudius’ malicious doings. In the midst of the play it is seen that the king himself look as if he is also a victim of poison when he says, Claudius comes to terms with what he has done, he knows that he has committed the absolute worst sin of all; murder. He has effectively poisoned his mind with infecting it with thoughts and feelings of extreme guilt, so much so that he cannot even pray or ask for forgiveness. Claudius uses the word “rank,” in this context can be inferred as, having a foul and offensive odor, and it strongly implies that
In addition to this internal struggle, Hamlet feels it is his duty to dethrone Claudius and become the King of Denmark. This revenge, he believes, would settle the score for his mother’s incestuous relationship and would reinstate his family’s honor. These thoughts are solidified in Act I, Scene 5, when his father’s ghost appears and informs Hamlet that is was Claudius who murdered him, and that Claudius deprived him “of life, of crown, and queen” (line 75). This information leads to Hamlet’s promise to kill Claudius, while not punishing his mother for their incestuous marriage. His statement, “thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain” (lines 102-103), demonstrates his adamant decision to let nothing stand in the way of his promise for revenge.
Throughout this process, his relationship with his uncle Claudius and mother Gertrude worsen. Hamlet and Claudius’ tainted relationship successively intensifies through their planned plots to kill one another. The relationship between Hamlet and his mother Gertrude worsen due to her shameful acts, and her disregard towards her son in his times of need. If it had not been for this corruption between the family, Denmark would’ve continued to be ruled by an honourable and truthful family. Instead, the kingdom of Denmark became rife with dishonesty, eventually leading to the death of Hamlet and Claudius, the ultimate
Claudius is seen in Hamlets eyes as a horrible person because he convicted murder and incest. Claudius had killed the king of Denmark, Old Hamlet, to obtain the position of the throne. He had been jealous of Old Hamlet’s wife Gertrude and wanted to marry her for her power. Although, such an act would be called incest and considered unnatural he did not care, all he had cared about was the power that he would be stealing from Hamlet and Old Hamlet, Gertrude’s son and husband (R). When Hamlet had talked to his f...
... the only way to honour his father Polonius is by killing Hamlet. In addition, as Claudius reads the letter from Hamlet to Laertes he says “'Tis Hamlet’s character. “Naked” And in a postscript here, he says “alone.” Can you advise me?” (IV, VII, 52-53). This shows that Claudius takes advantage of Hamlet’s return alone as an opportunity for Laertes to kill him. Through Claudius’s actions the readers observe how he deceives Laertes into killing Hamlet for his own benefit without getting blood on his hands. Furthermore, Claudius’ desperation to kill Hamlet leads to him losing sight of what is important, which is being the king of Denmark, what he originally wanted, instead the lies he told and the manipulation he spread is now taking over. To conclude, it is evident through the play that the words and actions of Claudius have only lead to the spread of deception.
King Claudius, as first revealed by Hamlet Sr.’s ghost, is a corrupted man. During Hamlet’s exchange with his ghostly father in the castle barracks, the secret of Claudius’s crime is exposed to Hamlet “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life/ Now wears his crown.” (1.5.45). Claudius had killed Hamlet Sr. and was now trying to hide it with notable acting. Continuing with lacerations at Claudius, the ghost described him as “that incestuous, adulterate beast/ With witchcraft of
Seen from the early scenes of the play until Claudius’ last breath, Claudius’ only concern is gaining and maintaining power by any means necessary. His introduction into power begins with his own manipulative plot—that succeeds—to kill his brother, which the ghost tells Hamlet within the first act of the play (Shakespeare 59, 61). Claudius’ entrance into the position of king is centered around crime, murder, and manipulation, which in return is the basis of his reign. Further along into the play, readers notice that majority of the men portrayed in the play are concerned about justice or moral balance. However, the man in the position of absolute power is preoccupied with lust and schemes. As the play progresses, Claudius’ malfeasances become more apparent once Hamlet’s “insanity” reaches its peak and kills Polonius (171). More concerned with preserving his seat in the court, Claudius resorts to a plan