Claudius's character analysis of Hamlet

CLAUDIUS Introduction 2 Claudius’s character analysis 2 Conclusion 5 Reference List 6 Introduction Hamlet is one of the most famous revenge tragedies of Shakespeare. Claudius’s ambition led him to kill his elder brother, crown himself the king of Denmark, and marry his widow sister-in-law. At the beginning of the play, it is found find that everybody is devastated due to the death of the old king and his son feels worthless and feels his life is pointless due to his father’

CLAUDIUS

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Claudius’s character analysis...........................................................................................................2
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Reference List..................................................................................................................................6
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Introduction
Hamlet is one of the most famous revenge tragedies of Shakespeare. Each character in Hamlet
explores a separate trait of human personality. Shakespeare also introduces Hamlet who is also
the protagonist of the drama. He is a procrastinating type of character, who is confused about his
actions and dilly-dallies in his decisions. One of the most important characters in the play is
Claudius, who is the stepfather and uncle of Hamlet. Claudius is the antagonist in the play and
the play revolves around his wicked schemes. The first devilish act of Claudius was when he
poisoned his brother in the garden. Claudius’s ambition led him to kill his elder brother, crown
himself the king of Denmark, and marry his widow sister-in-law. He is blind for the lust of
power and so he decides to get his nephew, Hamlet killed. Although, at the end of the play;
Claudius receives his fateful death.
Claudius’s character analysis
Shakespeare has introduced great villains through his plays. Through Claudius, he portrays a
dynamic Machiavellian character; he is both shrewd and charming at the same time. At the
beginning of the play, it is found find that everybody is devastated due to the death of the old
king and his son feels worthless and feels his life is pointless due to his father’s tragic death and
his mother married his uncle right after his death (Sosnowska). Hamlet is filled with anger and
remorse in his heart when one night “the ghost” of his father appears and tells about the doings
of Claudius and asks him to avenge his death. The ghost informs the biggest crime Claudius has
committed for power and for being in love with his brother’s wife (Sosnowska). This event
changes the plot and turns into a revenge tragedy. The twist exposes Claudius in front of Hamlet
as a heartless murderer. Claudius presents himself here as a political player, with a noble and yet
an extremely cunning person (Kruglyak). According to Hamlet, Claudius was a treacherous
animal, a drunk, a womanizer and a self-centred person.
It is found from the play that Claudius is almost about to get away with the murder of his brother
until “the ghost” appears and spills his secrets. It is evident throughout the play that, Claudius is
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no fool and has the ability to influence Gertrude and even Hamlet to fight a deadly duel
(Kruglyak). Shakespeare presents him with all the possible sophistication of a king, he even arms
him rhetorical and charming speeches, which enchants the readers. In his first speech (1:2:1-39),
Claudius addresses his court noblemen and specially Laertes and Hamlet about the controversies
regarding his marriage and convinces them how it would solve a major political threat,
effortlessly (Paul). He addresses the courtiers in such alluring tones that they are convinced of the
marriage instead of taking it as incest. He addressed them as:
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen. . .
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy, . . .
Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along.
[I. ii. 8-16]
His charismatic personality captures the attention of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and employs
them to spy on Hamlet. Claudius displays his power of perception when he is able to recognise
Hamlet's plan to pretend to be mad (Litvin). Compared to the old king, Claudius was a vicious
politician who was good at manipulating people. Claudius’s marriage with Gertrude might seem
a political move, due to the method he first killed his brother and wooed his sister in law (Bray).
Claudius method of murdering his brother displays his intelligence too as he poured poison in his
ear and created a cover story that the king died of snakebite while sleeping in the garden (Litvin).
In this way, he was not suspected as the murderer by anyone, and he went on to be the next king.
Shakespeare has emphasised mostly on the charms of Claudius. When Gertrude was mourning
for her late husband, Claudius wooed his sister in law and persuaded to marry him (Kranefuss).
After marrying Gertrude, he influences her to leave her motherly affections towards Hamlet and
convinces her to stay loyal to Claudius. He creates a hatred gap between the mother and the son
and convinces Hamlet to think that her mother was selfish, immature and had something to do
with his father’s death (Kranefuss). Claudius shows his shrewdness when he uses Gertrude’s
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spinelessness, lack of judgement and her loyalty to spy over Hamlet. Although in the end,
Gertrude is overwhelmed by the love she had for Hamlet and decided to betray Claudius to save
her son. When Claudius hears about Polonius’s murder, he does not pay much attention towards
the eminent threat Gertrude was facing (Kranefuss). Although, he manages to say, “Gertrude, do
not drink”; when the queen picks up the poisoned glass to drink during the duel. Claudius
wished to arrest Hamlet for the murder of Polonius, but due to the constant begging of Gertrude,
he stops but instead he tries to hatch a different politically twisted plan (GÜNENÇ). In this scene,
Claudius starts to show some of his real feelings towards Gertrude, who was dead by then. He
confesses to Laertes about Gertrude that, “so conjunctive to my life and soul, that as the star
moves not but in his sphere, so I could not but by her” (4:7:14-16).
The character of Claudius in Hamlet is a great personification of political phenomenon. The
political intelligence of Claudius was undoubtedly one of the greatest as portrayed by
Shakespeare. He is considered to be the most prominent candidate for the throne of Denmark
during Hamlet’s absence in the court (Kruglyak). He attempted an indecorous remarriage
maintaining an incestuous relationship to retain the throne in his hand. This rationalised step
gave Claudius a sterling reputation. Apart from that, the initiative of Claudius to influence the
king of Norway to suppress the ambition of this young nephew is considered as a politically
perfect international relationship (Kruglyak).
The Machiavellism is also noted in the character of Claudius. He was desperate to gain the
throne of Denmark displacing Hamlet (Akhter). He finds the feigned madness of Hamlet as a
tricky way to control him. He tried to dispose of the wishes of Gertrude to bring Hamlet more
under his control (Sterrett). The Machiavelism approach is a significant way for the rulers for not
being nice to anyone and plays tricky games to control the throne. He lacked the qualms of
manipulating his citizen (Charnes). Moreover, he pretends to be the nice stepfather of hamlet
while his actual intention was to kill Hamlet by any mean which is considered to be “The
murder of Gonzago”. Cruelty can also be found in the character of Claudius. He let Gertrude
drink the poisonous wine without alarming him (Sterrett). He preferred to see his wife dying than
to warn her stating “Gertrude, do not drink, whatever you do, as the wine is poisoned because
I’m secretly trying to kill your son, and even though I really would rather have him dead, I am
not willing to let you go down as a casualty of my despicable and unlawful scheming ”
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(V.ii.15). He did this to continue his plans accordingly. The perceiving of Machiavelism has
promoted Claudius to kill Hamlet first (Charnes).
Later, the character of Claudius was more of Villainous than of a representation of his people
manipulation, tricky plans and political intelligence. thus, his killing of the old king cannot be
wholly considered as a villainous attempt (Sadowski). Instead, it was necessary to kill the king to
save the country. The killing of the king made Claudius both the hero and the villain of the play.
Being a king’s man his killing of Hamlet cannot be ethically justified. On the contrary, Hamlet
was a cruel king and it was necessary to stop his ruthlessness (LESSA DE OLIVEIRA). Thus, by
killing Hamlet he earned a great amount of sympathy from the audience.
Claudius’s philosophical perspective on human life is found when he stated to the ghost that
“But you must know, your father lost a father” (i.ii.4) when the ghost of Hamlet told him, that
“Thus was I, sleeping by a brother’s hand, Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched”
(i.v.80). This suggests that Claudius intended to state that death is an unavoidable truth of nature
having no proper time or situation.
Conclusion
The play was written a time when the king was considered to be the embodiment of god. Hence,
the killing of the king was considered to be a heinous crime. Thus, the play Hamlet was
developed in such a way where Claudius was predominantly considered as the villain as he killed
the king in this play. Moreover, as per the modern perspective, killing a person is also considered
as a punishable offence. However, it is notable that killing of Hamlet was unavoidable in order to
prevent Denmark from his monarchism. Claudius thought that he would have ruled Denmark a
better way than that of Hamlet. His intelligence level has proven him to be both hero and villain
in the play Hamlet.
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Reference List
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Of Humanistic Psychology, vol 58, no. 5, 2017, pp. 525-555. SAGE Publications,
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Charnes, Linda. ""Hamlet" Without Hamlet (Review)". Shakespeare Quarterly, vol 58, no. 4,
2007, pp. 538-542. Johns Hopkins University Press, doi:10.1353/shq.2007.0054.
GÜNENÇ, MESUT. "OPHELIA AND GERTRUDE: VICTIMIZED WOMEN IN
HAMLET". Journal Of International Social Research, vol 41, no. 41, 2015, pp. 164-
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Tragedy Of Hamlet Prince Of Denmark.". SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014. Elsevier BV,
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Litvin, Margaret. "When The Villain Steals The Show: The Character Of Claudius In Post-1975
Arab(Ic) Hamlet Adaptations". Journal Of Arabic Literature, vol 38, no. 2, 2007, pp. 196-
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