Late King Hamlet Loyalty Quotes

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In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the minor character, the late King Hamlet, demonstrates the complications of loyalty. Throughout the play, Shakespeare includes varies moments of loyalty that are portrayed not only through Hamlet but as well as Laertes. Late King Hamlet is considerably the catalyst of the complications that spur the downfall in the relationship between Laertes and Hamlet. When the late King Hamlet quoted:“A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark is by a forgéd process of my death rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,the serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown”the ghost was explaining to Hamlet how Claudius, “the serpent”, took the life and crown of the previous king, late King Hamlet (I,v,39,I,v,49). …show more content…

Typically a snake has two different meanings. The first meaning comes from the sneakiest of the snake. When they look for prey, they are known to slither and hide so that they are not recognized. Snakes also attack quickly and inject venom into their prey to kill them quickly. So, by the late King Hamlet describing Claudius as a snake, he is able to demonstrate that Claudius killed the late King Hamlet in such a way that he was quick and swift, ultimately able to “inject his venom”, the poison, into the ear of the king that killed him. The second meaning of a snake comes from the bible. In the bible,”The serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made” (Genesis 3:1). The serpent also was a representation of Satan because of his use of the snake to lie to Eve and lead her to disobedience. Because there are many times in the play that religion is mentioned such as “O all you host of heaven!”, the reader is able to understand the connect between Hamlet and God. Because of this, the late King Hamlet was able to lure Hamlet into getting revenge because instead of making Hamlet view Claudius as a murder, the late king was able to have Claudius portrayed as the devil which ultimately Hamlet will try to stop, kill, from causing any more

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