Hamlet :: essays research papers

William Shakespeare&8217s crossroads is a play full of sorrow and excitement, its full of board andincest. The play has a large amount of betrayal and the person supplying most of that is Claudius,the king and Hamlets uncle. Claudius is cold-hearted, full of hate, and a coward. He is the kingbut, the ironic involvement about that is he should not be and as Hamlet is the prince, the death of his fathershould put him at the throne.The play starts off with a tense setting, as the guards have seen a ghost that looks like the oldking or Hamlets father who they believed had died of a snake bite. This is the showing of the firstcruel deed Claudius has done, the lecturer does not know yet but Claudius is the reason that KingHamlet dies. The reader knows that it is Claudius when Hamlet encounters the ghost and the ghosttells Hamlet, &8220Thus I was sleeping, by a brothers hand, of life, at chapiter, of queen, at oncedispatch&8217d.(1) The meaning of the ghost&8217s quote is that he is te lling Hamlet that Claudius killedhim when he was asleep and that he took his crown and his queen. This is the first time the readerreally knows that Claudius is cold-hearted and ruthless. After Hamlet heard this, he held a play where the murder of his father is reacted in a scene,that Hamlet himself designed. The purpose of this was to see Claudius&8217s reaction to the scene toprove if Claudius is the real murderer or not. After Claudius sees the play he storms out of the stage frighten and surprised. Claudius then prays to heaven for forgiveness of his sins since he knows thatHamlet has figured out what he has done, he does this so he will not get send to hell. Claudius says,&8220My words fly up, my thoughts remain below Words without thoughts never to heaven go.(2) Heis praying for forgiveness but he is not sorry, he just doesn&8217t want to get sent to hell and that is whatthe quote is saying, since he is not sorry his words remain below, or on Earth. This further proveshow cold -hearted Claudius is, he has killed his brother, interpreted his crown, taken his wife, has beendiscovered, and he still does not feel guilty at all about what he has done.Claudius now knows that Hamlet has figured him out and what he has done, so Claudiusplans to send Hamlet away to England with a note for the king of England to have Hamlet killed.