The definition of a villain is: a character whose evil actions/motives are important to the plot. In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, King Claudius is the villain because he killed Hamlet's father, he married Hamlet's mother so soon after King Hamlet died, and he had an "epic battle" with Hamlet and Laertes at the end of the book. In Act 1, Scene 5 of Hamlet, the ghost of Hamlets father comes and tells him that Claudius killed him. "Sleeping within my orchard.....upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, with juice of curséd henbona in a vial, and in the porches of my ear did pour." - (1, 5, 66-70). The ghost of Hamlet's father came and told Hamlet that Claudius, his uncle, had poured henbane into his ear while he was sleeping in his orchard. Claudius represents a characteristic of a villain, sin. He murdered Hamlet's father out of greed. After killing King Hamlet, he moved on to marrying his wife so that he could be King. …show more content…
"Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes, she married. O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!" -(1, 2, 158-162). Hamlet says that within a month of his father dying, and before the tears in his mother's eyes had dried, she married her brother-in-law, Claudius. Here, Claudius represents the characteristic of "befriending the hero only to deceive him/her later". He didn't marry the Queen out of love, he married her out of greed. Now that he had deceived the Queen, he had to deceive Hamlet in order to kill