Hamlet Essay Qs And As

What kind of a King is Claudius? What evidence shows the kind of monarch he is and the kind of man he is? Is this his appearance, or is it his true character?

Claudius is a thieving king who is egocentric. But that is what anyone and everyone can think of him as. Is there truly any good in him? Is he misinterpreted by all that surround him? Is Claudius not the victim? His brother, King Hamlet, has apparently been doing better than Claudius all his life. Was Claudius not simply taking the first opportunity he had to become the "good" one? The one who would be praised by many, many people, unlike in his childhood. Perhaps he has deep emotional scars that blind him from the moral thing to do. Perhaps Hamlet is not the hero. Maybe he is the villain. I believe that Claudius can be seen either way. No matter which side is real. There is one of each in either. I believe that Claudius represents the often used Chinese symbol of the Yin and the Yang.

Name the various foils Shakespeare has created for Hamlet. Why is each important to the play?

Ophelia is one of Hamlets foils. She represents his innocence. She is important because Hamlet is giving up Ophelia for this goose-chase of his in turn giving up his innocence.

Claudius is one of his foils because he is the one who, in a sense, took his innocence away from him. He represents the evil. He drove him mad over the death of his father. He has also taken the throne away from him by marrying his mother. Claudius has taken away all the things he loved to become king.

Gertrude is another foil and she represents ignorance. Now, I know that she has also been seen as the conspirer and was not incompetent to the situation. However, she does seem ignorant in that sense because she is blind as to how it is wrong.

Finally, Hamlet's biggest foil is himself. He has given up his innocence, killed his best friend, and has not killed Claudius