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HamletClaudius Character Analysis. Hamlet ’s major antagonist is a shrewd, lustful, conniving king who contrasts sharply with the other male characters in the play. Whereas most of the other important men in Hamlet are preoccupied with ideas of justice, revenge, and moral balance, Claudius is bent upon maintaining his own power.
- Hamlet
Hamlet has fascinated audiences and readers for centuries,...
- Ophelia
During her first appearance in Act I, Scene 3, Laertes and...
- Character List
Read an in-depth analysis of Hamlet. Claudius. The King of...
- Hamlet
Claudius, Hamlet. Claudius is a character in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. He is one of Shakespeare’s most manipulative characters. We tend to think that Hamlet, is all about the prince. But it’s a play with a full cast of characters all interacting intricately with each other. Claudius is without doubt the second character in Hamlet .
Alan Bates played Claudius as a drunken, buffoonish, craven schemer in Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 film. In Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film, Claudius was played by Derek Jacobi. Jacobi had not only been Branagh's mentor as an actor, but had previously played Hamlet himself with Patrick Stewart as Claudius in a BBC production. In Michael Almereyda's ...
Claudius, meanwhile, interprets Hamlet’s suspicion and anger as madness, and endeavors to find out the cause by recruiting Hamlet’s friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Claudius fears that Hamlet is onto him, and when Hamlet arranges a performance of a play whose events mirror the manner of King Hamlet’s murder, Claudius at last confesses, in a lengthy soliloquy, to his dark, dastardly ...
- Hamlet
- Claudius
- Gertrude
- Polonius
- Ophelia
- Laertes
- The Ghost
- Horatio
- Fortinbras
- Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
The Prince of Denmark, the title character, and the protagonist. About thirty years old at the start of the play, Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king, Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy, bitter, and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle’s scheming and disgust for his mother’s sexuality. A ref...
The King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle, and the play’s antagonist. The villain of the play, Claudius is a calculating, ambitious politician, driven by his sexual appetites and his lust for power, but he occasionally shows signs of guilt and human feeling—his love for Gertrude, for instance, seems sincere. Read an in-depth analysis of Claudius.
The Queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s mother, recently married to Claudius. Gertrude loves Hamlet deeply, but she is a shallow, weak woman who seeks affection and status more urgently than moral rectitude or truth. Read an in-depth analysis of Gertrude.
The Lord Chamberlain of Claudius’s court, a pompous, conniving old man. Polonius is the father of Laertes and Ophelia. Read an in-depth analysis of Polonius.
Polonius’s daughter, a beautiful young woman with whom Hamlet has been in love. Ophelia is a sweet and innocent young girl, who obeys her father and her brother, Laertes. Dependent on men to tell her how to behave, she gives in to Polonius’s schemes to spy on Hamlet. Even in her lapse into madness and death, she remains maidenly, singing songs abou...
Polonius’s son and Ophelia’s brother, a young man who spends much of the play in France. Passionate and quick to action, Laertes is clearly a foil for the reflective Hamlet. Read an in-depth analysis of Laertes.
The specter of Hamlet’s recently deceased father. The Ghost, who claims to have been murdered by Claudius, calls upon Hamlet to avenge him. However, it is not entirely certain whether the Ghost is what it appears to be, or whether it is something else. Hamlet speculates that the Ghost might be a devil sent to deceive him and tempt him into murder, ...
Hamlet’s close friend, who studied with the prince at the university in Wittenberg. Horatio is loyal and helpful to Hamlet throughout the play. After Hamlet’s death, Horatio remains alive to tell Hamlet’s story. Read an in-depth analysis of Horatio.
The young Prince of Norway, whose father the king (also named Fortinbras) was killed by Hamlet’s father (also named Hamlet). Now Fortinbras wishes to attack Denmark to avenge his father’s honor, making him another foil for Prince Hamlet. Read an in-depth analysis of Fortinbras.
Two slightly bumbling courtiers, former friends of Hamlet from Wittenberg, who are summoned by Claudius and Gertrude to discover the cause of Hamlet’s strange behavior. Read an in-depth analysis of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern.
As with all the supporting characters in Hamlet, Claudius is not developed to his full potential. His primary role in the play is to spawn Hamlet's confusion and anger, and his subsequent search for truth and life's meaning. But Claudius is not a static character. While his qualities are not as thoroughly explored as Hamlet's, Shakespeare ...
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Jun 2, 2020 · Act 3, scene 2. ⌜ Scene 2 ⌝. Synopsis: Hamlet gives direction to the actors and asks Horatio to help him observe Claudius’s reaction to the play. When the court arrive, Hamlet makes bawdy and bitter comments to Ophelia. The traveling actors perform, in dumb show and then with dialogue, a story that includes many elements of Claudius’s ...
