Does the character we show in public match what we really like when no one else is around? This is the question that shows up over the course of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The characters shown in public don’t really match the true character, including King Claudius, Polonius, and Hamlet. As the play progresses, the reader can see the changes in each character. They go from caring so much about their public image to not caring one bit about what the public thinks about them. From the outside, King Claudius looks as if he is a very nice and kind person, trying his best to make the people like him. Claudius acts as if he is genuinely sad about the death of Hamlet’s father. He is mourning, “To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom …show more content…
He knows that what people do reflects who they really are, and he basically admits that the murder he did defines his true self. After the fact that he killed Hamlet’s dad comes out, he really changes and tries to get rid of Hamlet. He wants to ship him away, “The sun shall no sooner touch the mountains, But we will ship him hence”(Shakespeare 4.1.30). In the beginning he pretends to care, but in reality he does not care one bit about Hamlet and his feelings. In part of the book Philosophy and the puzzles of Hamlet, Craig describes Claudius, “Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he seems like a man who would prefer to be better than he is, but cannot master the desires that make him the lesser that he is''(Craig 110). He wants to be good, but he lets his intrusive thoughts take over and does the wrong thing. In life there will always be two options and one is the right one and the other is the wrong one. For Claudius, it was hard to choose the right one, so he chose the wrong one. Polonius starts the book off showing a great display of kindness and intelligence towards his family and the people around him. He has a lot of wisdom that he gives and it sounds like he really wants to share