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How Is Hamlet Selfish

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When you are guilty of a crime, it makes you act in odd ways and say things you wouldn't normally say. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare Claudius has stolen King Hamlet's throne and married his sister in law. King Hamlet's son Hamlet, is determined to get revenge on Claudius. Claudius has always been rude to Hamlet and would tell him he is not being manly by grieving over his father's death for so long. To take down Hamlet, Claudius had various people looking over him to find out what he was thinking or planning. Ophelia was Hamlet's girlfriend who he loved very much, but she was ordered to ignore Hamlet. Hamlet was very upset and when he met with Ophelia he was very rude. Claudius spied on this conversation and decided that Hamlet must have been mad about something else. Claudius’ …show more content…

Claudius does not see a problem with what is going on in Hamlet's life and constantly tells him, “Your father lost a father; That father lost, lost his and the survivor bound” (Shakespeare 10). Claudius is unable to relate to Hamlet and understand why he is so upset. This is a major sign that Claudius is the bad guy who does not care about how Hamlet is taking all these recent changes. This is a sign that Claudius is changing how he feels about Hamlet. Claudius is becoming scared that his place in the throne will be taken away by loss of innocence. Claudius seems to only care about himself and his place as a king, he is shown to be selfish when he tells Hamlet to get over his father's death. Claudius starts to have a stricter mood towards Hamlet and how he controls things around the castle. Both Claudius and Hamlet show that they hate each other, but that is not shown publicly until Claudius hired spies to watch Hamlet and report back on what he is doing. When the spies don't report back to Claudius on what Hamlet has been doing, Claudius takes it into his own

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Like many British rulers (e.g., Henry IV, Elizabeth I, Richard III), Claudius kills a family member, performing “an act of state” and following “a tradition which every English monarch had had to accept for two hundred years” (45). Once on the throne, he must begin the process of securing his position: praising the dead king, forming political alliances, marrying Gertrude, dealing with the threat of Fortinbras, conciliating ministers (e.g., Polonius), and attempting a reconciliation with his primary rival Hamlet. Because Hamlet refuses to embrace the new king, Claudius must engage in spying tactics to gain knowledge about his potential enemy and, ultimately, decide to terminate the threat. But in Shakespeare’s political tragedy (unlike the realities of British history), murderers are destined to fail. Aside from the fact that all of his supporters die (e.g., Polonius, Laertes), Claudius proves a weak leader because he “invariably prefers compromise to confrontation, placatory gestures to open defiance” (51-52).

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King Claudius starts by perceiving Old King Hamlet's passing and reports it "befitted" the "whole kingdom" to lament Old Hamlet's incident. In any case, he furthermore avows that it is "quick" for the "whole kingdom" to move on quickly. Self-interest and self-defending are both fundamentally more

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Claudius expresses his thoughts on Hamlet to many people including Gertrude: “His liberty is full of threats to us all” (iv.i.14). Hamlet makes attempts to expose Claudius for murdering his father by putting on a play that mirrors the murder and he shames his mother for marrying Claudius. After seeing the play and hearing of Polonius' murder, Claudius felt even stronger about Hamlet being a threat. In order to prevent Hamlet from convincing everyone Claudius should not be king. He tells the people around him that Hamlet has gone mad and must leave.

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In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the dead king’s son Hamlet avenges his father’s murder, but his madness and indecision takes its toll on everyone. Hamlet’s father, the King Hamlet, was murdered by Claudius because he was ambitious for the throne and Queen Gertrude. In Act 3 of the play, Hamlet begins to test Claudius for any sign of guilt in the murder of his father. After watching a play disguised as a reenactment of the murder of King Hamlet, Claudius begins to confess his sins to God. In Claudius’ confession soliloquy, Shakespeare reveals Claudius’ inner duel between his rational desire to act virtuously by relieving his guilt and his gravitation toward material gain and selfishness by following his ambitions through the use of

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He commits crimes and is forced to lie to his people due to his selfishness making him want to be king. He feels guilt for the things he has done, but even his repentance is rooted in selfishness. Claudius also lets his selfishness take control over him when he realizes that Hamlet knows what he has done, so he plots against Hamlet so that he can remain in control. Claudius’s selfishness and greed are major flaws of his, and they come back to lead to

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Throughout the play, Claudius is consistently deceiving people and it takes its toll primarily on Hamlet. For instance, Claudius’ incestuous marriage with Gertrude is based on deception as she does not know he murdered her previous husband. This upsets Hamlet greatly as he feels a certain melancholy. likewise, Claudius is able to redirect Laertes’ rage towards Hamlet as he deceives him by convincing him Hamlet was intent on killing Polonius. As a result, we now have an additional foe against Hamlet and ultimately kills him with poison.

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Claudius is often depicted as the main villain in the Shakespearean play, Hamlet. In the first act we meet the ghost and learn that Hamlet’s father was ruthlessly murdered by Claudius. This is only the beginning of Claudius’ villainous reign that we witness throughout Hamlet's plot. Claudius is the personification of selfishness; murdering his brother just to take control of the kingdom. However, in this soliloquy he also shows that the guilt of what he did is weighing heavily on him.

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Unfortunately, Claudius really did commit the horrible crime and did shady actions in order to get away with murder and steal the crown. "If news that the ghost of the man Claudius murdered is haunting the castle did reach Claudius, Claudius would assume as a matter of course that the motive of the Ghost's visitation was to demand that his son revenge the murder," according to James Hirsh in "The 'To be or not to be' speech: evidence, conventional wisdom, and the editing of Hamlet;" because Claudius would automatically conclude that the only action Hamlet would turn to is seeking out Claudius' death, it automatically pegs him as guilt ridden, and this combined with his hunger for power lead him to be the biggest hypocrite of them all. “The polite language used by Claudius is duplicitous,” claims James Andreas in “The Vulgar and the Polite: Dialogue in Hamlet;” Andreas means that Claudius manipulates those around him by using comforting words that have no actual meaning. Claudius pretends to mourn the death of King Hamlet and sympathize with him by sharing that he also has a dead father, acts as he cares about Hamlet's well-being while sending him on a boat to England but is

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Claudius is seen at the beginning of the play to be a capable monarch as he deals diplomatically with such issues as the military threat from Norway and Hamlet's depression. It is not until the appearance of King Hamlet's Ghost in the courtyard that the reader questions his motives. During the play's progression he takes a turn for the worse by first resorting to spying, and, when that fails, murder. It is in Act III Scene 3, when Claudius forestalls Hamlet's revenge by confessing his sins to God in his own private chapel, that the audience can be sure of his guilt.

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When Claudius initially plans to "send Hamlet to England," Hamlet remains determined to avenge his father. Hamlet knows the motives of Claudius's plan, believing Hamlet threatens his

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To the people of Denmark he is seen as the brother of King Hamlet that is looking out for their interests. To his family and most importantly young Hamlet, he is the monster that killed his father and took away his kind mother. Claudius's corruption lies deep beneath his exterior and causes everything into motion. As the play progresses, Claudius is seen to only get worse with his actions. In Act IV, Claudius is talking with Laertes about a plan to kill Hamlet without having the people think it is foul play.

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Hamlet sees Claudius' malicious ambition. Thus, the motive behind Hamlet’s revenge. Hamlet can no longer have sympathy toward Claudius and even his mother. This moment marks the beginning of Hamlet’s craziness. As one can see, Claudius is a villain due to his evil motives in killing the

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10-24). This seems like Claudius cares about Hamlet since he talks about reasons why he thinks Hamlet should not be hurt. I feel like he mainly thinks this way because of what other people think of Hamlet not because of how he truly feels about Hamlet. Claudius said, "To thine own peace. If he be now returned, As checking at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him To an exploit, now ripe in my devise, Under the which he shall not choose but fall.

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He betrays his people with lies about what happened to Hamlet’s father. Claudius is not the heroic brother of the deceased king who took over the throne to save the people. He speaks to the people and convinces them not to be afraid that their King has died. While pretending to grieve, he encourages the people to forget about King Hamlet and get on with their lives. Claudius says: "

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Additionally, Claudius pretends to care about Hamlet’s well-being, when in fact he is just looking out for himself. Claudius tells Hamlet to stay in Denmark, not out of love, but out of his desire to keep a close on eye on Hamlet and secure his own power. He uses poison literally and figuratively to kill as well as manipulate people into submission, as he has done with Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Laertes. As one can easily tell, the play is filled with lies

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