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Deception In Hamlet Research Paper

413 Words2 Pages

In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the theme of deception is practiced throughout the play. Characters surrounding Hamlet use deception as a tool to achieve their goal, Claudius and Polonius’s use of deception has a great impact on Hamlet’s actions in the play. Claudius is the epitome of deception, it is through his deceit that leads to the events that occur. The betrayal of murdering his brother King Hamlet is seen as the beginning of the end. “It hath the primal eledest curse upon’t. A brothers murder”, Claudius blaming his brothers death in natural causes, decides that entire kingdom into accepting a murderer as king, this eventually leads to Hamlet learning the the real cause of his fathers death and causes Hamlet to take drastic action. Claudiius will do anything to hold onto his throne, even to the extent of killing his wife's son. Claudius knows that Gertrude loves Hamlet, “The Queen. His mother lives almost by his looks”, but is still willing to kill to ensure that he remains king. Deceiving Gertrude by attempting to kill her son shows that Claudius does not care enough about the people around him, his only goal is to remain King by lying to the people around him. …show more content…

He is portrayed as a deceiver who, like Culadiis, betrays people he is supposed to be devoted to, such as law rtes and ophelia. Polonius engages in deceitful spying. He sends Laeryes back to school after King hampers death, but berates his son by sending a spy after him to report back. He also deceives Ophelia by insisting she talks to hamlet, but then he proceeds to listen in on their conversation. He attempts to spy on Hamlet and Gertrude’s conversation and when Hamlet hears something he goes to kill it, leading Hamlet to kill Polonius because of his deceptive actions. Polonius’s deceptive nature of spying led to his death by the sword of

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