Realm Of Deception

2 Pages 594 Words

Realm of Deception

Shakespeare’s tragedies create environments which allow the character’s decisions to assume the darkest of ends. The Shakespearian play, Hamlet, yields the catalyst of dark deeds to Claudius, brother of King Hamlet. Claudius, stricken by the deadly sin of avarice, poisons King Hamlet and marries his adulterate wife, Gertrude. The deceit of Claudius sets the basis for mistrust and action between the characters. This beginning deception of Claudius creates Hamlet’s use of deceit to fight deceit and leads to the climatic deceit at the end of the play.
Claudius, the originator of deceit, creates his deception through his lust for the throne and Gertrude. This lust for the throne permits Claudius to go to extreme measures to gain royal power. Claudius kills King Hamlet with an ironic weapon, poison. This choice of a weapon is ironic because just as poison is disguised in its action Claudius attempts to disguise his motives. Claudius’s motives become clear when soon after the death of King Hamlet Claudius marries Gertrude, and allows his false emotions towards the death of the King to be shown. Claudius’s murder of the king and early marriage of Gertrude are all that is needed for Hamlet to create a mode of deceit to fight deceit.
Hamlet, appalled at the hasty actions of Claudius to assume a new power and a new wife hides his own emotions by creating a feigned madness to mask his knowledge. Hamlet creates this false madness out of the necessity to learn of Claudius’s motives and thoughts. The deceit of Claudius to try to hide what he has done is shed more and more as Hamlet hides behind his mask of madness. Claudius attempts to use Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, old school friends of Hamlet, to reveal this mask and find out its true intentions. The deceit of Claudius with the murder of the King, early marriage of Gertrude, and his attempts to delve into the mask of Hamlet’s madness, allow H...