The Effects of Regicide in Hamlet

In many cases, the government often reflects on how the country fares. A free democracy has a better quality of life that a totalitarian regime. When a tyrant seizes power, the people resent him and fight, taking away that power, and plunging the country into anarchy. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a manipulative politician named Claudius kills his brother, King Hamlet, to ascend to the throne. This evil disrupts the natural order of the monarchy and spreads through the country. In the end, chaos, corruption and rot is the result of the murder of the Danish king by Claudius, which ultimately causes the downfall of Hamlet, the Royal Family, and Denmark.

Prince Hamlet, son of the dead king and nephew of the usurper, is a popular and well-regarded individual throughout Denmark. Claudius knows “[h]e’s loved of the distracted multitude” (Shakespeare IV.iii.4) and Ophelia, his love interest, describes him as “[t]h’ expectancy and rose of the fair state” (III.i.166). However, his character changes after his father’s death. His mother quickly weds Claudius, whom Hamlet sees as “little more than kin and less than kind.” (I.ii.67) This incestuous marriage disgusts Hamlet, who loses all hope in women because of his mother’s unfaithfulness to her dead husband. “[F]railty, thy name is woman” (I.ii.150) he cries. His relationship with Ophelia abruptly ends, as he cannot trust her, but tells her to go to a “nunnery” (III.i.131), rather than become “a breeder of sinners.” (III.i.132) This misogyny fits in with Hamlet’s feigned madness as he tries to investigate the ghost claims of his father’s murder. Upon confirming this theory, he goes to tell his mother and proceeds to “wring [her] heart” (III.iv.43) and “speak daggers to her” (III.ii.429). The unn...

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...mark at the conclusion of the play. It is as if “buried Denmark” (I.i.56) had died with King Hamlet. Not only did the country physically fall, but morally as well. The heads of state “live in the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed,” (III.iv.104) as do the peasants. In the graveyard, the digger comments that nowadays people are “rotten before [they] die” (V.i.169) and many corpses are ridden with syphilis. This corruption and rot extends throughout the nation from an immoral king.

The foul murder ruins Hamlet, the Royal Family, and all of Denmark, as it starts a chaotic series of events that lead to death, suffering, and eventual justice. Like the physical and moral tumour kills its host, and dies, a destructive government is unsustainable and fails. History shows that people will not accept a tyrant, but rather want a fair and valiant ruler that reflects their virtues.