Appearance vs. Reality
Appearance and reality have never been portrayed with such immense differences as they are seen in Hamlet. Deceit runs about freely the entire play and affects every character, creating torment and confusion for all. Three complex characters use treachery to their advantage as they create façade in order to carry out plans, yet their shrouded minds impede them from carrying them through. All Shakespearian tragedies are filled with delusive, spurious characters, but none are as deceitful as those in Hamlet. Claudius, Polonius, and Hamlet have distorted realities and unfortunately, each has a clouded conscious that leads them to make life-changing decisions.
Claudius is a very deceptive king who tries to bend his appearance throughout the play in order to accommodate for his unfortunate reality. He is an appalling, hypocritical king incapable of running his own kingdom. Unfortunately, Claudius is able to deceive others around him, and creates an illusion of being a great king. In the novel, he is able to stop young Fortinbras from attacking Denmark; only after much pleading and supplication to Fortingbra’s uncle though. Nevertheless, Claudius knows that he is a dreadful king “and from his lips we get the true explanation, he discloses the fact that young Fortinbras has no wholesome fear and respect for him as he had for the late king” (Crawford). Furthermore, Claudius has a dishonest lifestyle that differentiates him from a true king. As the great Shakespearean scholar Alexander W. Crawford explains, “The king led the way in dissipation and debauchery” a life in which Claudius only lives to play, never to rule. Above all, deception pours from Claudius when he kills his own brother, the late King Hamlet. Up u...
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...one. Hamlet is a very impacting novel; ergo, the novel imposes a very intriguing, confusing question: why does appearance modify reality or more importantly, what is reality?
Works Cited
Babra, Neil, and William Shakespeare. Hamlet. New York: Sparknotes, 2008. Print.
Crawford, Alexander W. "Hamlet's Antic Dispesition." Shakespeare Online. Shakespeare Online, 20 Aug. 2009. Web. 2 Feb. 2012. .
Crwaford, Alexander W. "Claudius and the Condition of Denmark." Shakespeare Online. Shakespeare Online, 20 Aug. 2009. Web. 2 Feb. 2012. .
Mabillard, Amanda. "Deception in Shakespeare's Hamlet." Shakespeare Online. Shakespeare Online, 20 Aug. 2009. Web. 2 Feb. 2012. .
Wilson, Elkin. "Polonius in the Round." JSTOR. JSTOR. Web. 2 Feb. 2012. .
Watson, Robert N. 1990. 'Giving up the Ghost in a World of Decay: Hamlet, Revenge and Denial.' Renaissance Drama 21:199-223.
Boklund, Gunnar. "Hamlet." Essays on Shakespeare. Ed. Gerald Chapman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965.
Claudius is a manipulative and corrupt character who mislead the entire Sate of Denmark to believe he was dutiful, trustworthy and perceptive King. After the death of King Hamlet, Claudius takes the thrown and says this to the State, “Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe.” (Act 1, Scene 2, lines 1-4) This quote at first makes Claudius seem like a very sensitive King who is addressing the fact that mourning for the death of King Hamlet is encouraged. Yet, later on in the play we discover that Claudius is truly the murderer of the King and fooled the Kingdom to believe he was also grieving. Claudius also manipulated to the Kingdom to believe that he was shipping Hamlet away to England for his own safety and for the safety of others, but in reality he was petrified that Hamlet would reveal his dark sin of assassinating the King to take the crown for himself. Lastly, in the very last scene in the...
As suspicions arise, it is easy extract the truth through cheating and lying; however, after doing so, the dishonesty used makes the truth less valid. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the character of Hamlet struggles with whom he can trust, finding that most are untruthful in order to benefit themselves. Conversely, Polonius, a wealthy and prominent advisor of Hamlet’s family, the Danish monarchy, attempts to create falsehoods to confuse and control Denmark. While Polonius and Hamlet both have immense power, Polonius is able to use his influence more efficiently as he understands the instability and variability of truth. Hamlet’s demise comes from his inability to accept the truth as a multifaceted problem with the option to accept or deny it.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. C. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: Norton, 2005. Print.
Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, is a tale of a young prince who must ascertain the truth regarding his father's death. Throughout the play, the fundamental theme of appearance versus reality is constant. The majority of the main characters hide behind veils of lies and deceptions, obscuring the truth to the point that nearly nothing of their actual selves are visible. The labyrinth of deception is so twisted that only Hamlet is aware of the truth, and only because the ghost of his father revealed it to him. Hamlet, Polonius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and the King Claudius are all part of this circle of deception.
Hamlet is a play by William Shakespeare about a prince named Hamlet who was spoken to by the ghost of his dead father telling Hamlet to kill his uncle Claudius (the new king) because Claudius killed him. The story revolves around Hamlet's dillema of how to kill his uncle while being deceptive enough so that no one finds out about the ghost. This essay will prove how deception is often used in Hamlet for many reasons. Claudius uses deception to protect himself from being prosecuted for his crime of killing the King. No one knows what the deal is with Gertrude because she deceives everybody by keeping to herself all the time keeping everyone from knowing anything. By using quotes from the book I will prove how these two (Claudius and Gertrude) and among a few others , use deception for different reasons and in different ways. A lot of the times it is to protect someone, or themselvs because they believe that the truth will hurt more than their lies.
Mack, Maynard. "The World of Hamlet." Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism. Rev. ed. Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Oxford University P., 1967.
R, Sarah. "Shakespeare's Hamlet - The Personal and Political Corruption of the State." Teenink. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Jan. 2014. .
Boklund, Gunnar. "Hamlet." Essays on Shakespeare. Ed. Gerald Chapman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965.
Watson, Robert N. 1990. 'Giving up the Ghost in a World of Decay: Hamlet, Revenge and Denial.' Renaissance Drama 21:199-223.
Act 2 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is unique in the sense that there are several dramatic productions that occur inside the tragedy itself. Hamlet’s role as both a director and an actor in the condensed production reveal his manipulative nature and his dire motivation to avenge his father’s death. In order to fulfill the wishes of his late father’s ghost, Hamlet must mislead the Danish court while he attempts to expose the truth. The play has already been marred with deception, as Hamlet has struggled to overcome the corruption of the Danish court as well as Claudius’ murder of his father and subsequent marriage to his mother. Additionally, Hamlet suspects his mother and stepfather’s devious operations when they send his childhood friends
Many would perceive madness and corruption to play the most influential role in Hamlet. However, it could be argued that the central theme in the tragedy is Shakespeare's presentation of actors and acting and the way it acts as a framework on which madness and corruption are built. Shakespeare manifests the theme of actors and acting in the disassembly of his characters, the façades that the individuals assume and the presentation of the `play within a play'. This intertwined pretence allows certain characters to manipulate the actions and thoughts of others. For this reason, it could be perceived that Shakespeare views the `Elsinorean' tragedy as one great puppet show, "I could see the puppets dallying".
Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is a complex and ambiguous public exploration of key human experiences surrounding the aspects of revenge, betrayal and corruption. The Elizabethan play is focused centrally on the ghost’s reoccurring appearance as a symbol of death and disruption to the chain of being in the state of Denmark. The imagery of death and uncertainty has a direct impact on Hamlet’s state of mind as he struggles to search for the truth on his quest for revenge as he switches between his two incompatible values of his Christian codes of honour and humanist beliefs which come into direct conflict. The deterioration of the diseased state is aligned with his detached relationship with all women as a result of Gertrude’s betrayal to King Hamlet which makes Hamlet question his very existence and the need to restore the natural order of kings. Hamlet has endured the test of time as it still identifies with a modern audience through the dramatized issues concerning every human’s critical self and is a representation of their own experience of the bewildering human condition, as Hamlet struggles to pursuit justice as a result of an unwise desire for revenge.
...World of Hamlet.” Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism. Rev. ed. Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Oxford University P., 1967.