Hamlet - The Master of Deception Essay

A foil is a minor character in a literary work that compliments the main character through similarities and differences in personality and plot. In William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet", the main character, Hamlet, has three major foils. These foils are his close friend Horatio, Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, and the brother of his love, Laertes. These three characters contradict and enhance Hamlet's major characteristics.

In another scene, Polonius orders Ophelia to return the gifts that Hamlet gave her, and to make her rejection of him unmistakable and absolute. Polonius believes that if she is the cause of Hamlet’s madness, this would be the proof. “That Hamlet loses his mental stability is arguable from his behavior toward Ophelia…” (Foster, par.16) In Branagh’s version, we see how terribly this tears Ophelia’s heart. When Hamlet sees her, he walks up to her, telling her how much he loves her. After Hamlet kisses her, she returns the love letters that he wrote back to him. She sees how crushed he is, which makes her feel even worse; but she also believes she has to do this because her father ordered her to. Hamlet tells her “Get thee to a nunnery” (William

Hamlet also uses Ophelia as a pawn, perhaps more than her family. Hamlet uses the court’s knowledge of his relationship with Ophelia in order to draw attention away from his real purpose of killing his uncle. In Act III, Scene I, Ophelia approaches Hamlet in order to return his letters and other pledges of affection for her, according to her father’s wishes. Hamlet appears to be very distraught, and accuses Ophelia of lying to him and being prostituted by her family. This outburst, however, is used solely to camouflage his real purpose-to have revenge of Claudius, his uncle, for killing his father. Hamlet is aware that Polonius and Claudius are watching this encounter between him and Ophelia, and uses the situation to his benefit- he can pretend to be heartbroken by Ophelia’s supposed

Before she knows it, she is placed in a predicament where she has to chose between her loyalty to her father, or her own feelings. She chose to lie to Hamlet rather than reveal her father. This is her fatal flaw. Hamlet, knowing she is lying to him, gets very angry and not only denys his feelings for her, he questions her integrity and refers to her as an impure woman. Hamlet is rude in his own day by asking Ophelia "Lady, shall I lie in your lap?" (Act 3, Scene II, Line 109) Ophelia had deserved the treatment she received from him. Hamlet was fed up with Ophelia ignoring him and always trying to stay away from him. From her betraying Hamlet and the denouncing of his love, this confrontation begins Ophelia true fall into insanity.

She says she loves Prince Hamlet yet she tells Polonius everything that goes on between them. Polonius forbids Ophelia to leave the castle, making Prince Hamlet write his love for her through a letter, in which Ophelia gives to Polonius to read, “Doubt thou the stars are fire,/ Doubt that the sun doth move,/ Doubt truth to be a liar,/ But never doubt I love.” (2.2.124-127). Ophelia feels the love but decides not to tell her father in fear of getting disowned and losing his love for her. The fear of losing her father's love makes Ophelia lie saying “No, my good lord, but as you did command/ I did repel his letters and denied/ His access to me” (2.2.120-122). Ophelia keeps to herself her wish to desperately be with Prince Hamlet from Polonius. When he finds out that Ophelia has been telling Polonius everything about their “relationship” and that she messed around with him just to get information, he gets very infuriated and “loses” the love he had for Ophelia. “I loved you not” (3.1.129).His feelings have changed to hate and regret, Prince Hamlet’s love for Ophelia seemed to be strong but in a flash it’s gone. When Ophelia tries to apologize to Prince Hamlet his feelings stay neutral and he can never love Ophelia again. Ophelia knows that what she did can’t be forgiven, after what Prince Hamlet told

One must always be weary of the truth because it is quite often manipulated to serve the needs of any person who requires that the truth be on their side. Quite often, the only way to discern the truth from the fiction is by way of a deceptive act, because an act of deception always exposes both its self and the truth to be two quite different things. Nowhere is this more true than in William Shakespeare's, Hamlet. One of the major themes in the play is in fact, deception. This central theme is expressed throughout the play in three major forms: the fear of being deceived, the act of deception, and the ultimate result of the deceptive act. The first facet of the deceptive

In Act III scene i, Polonius and the King hide behind Ophelia's curtains and eavesdrop on the conversation between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet goes on to scold Ophelia and accuse her of not being chaste "Ha, ha! Are you honest?" ... "Are you fair?" ... "Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be / a breeder of sinners?" Hamlet goes on to say "...This was sometime a paradox, but now / the time gives it proof. I did love you once." Ophelia replies with "Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so." Her heart must have torn in two when Hamlet came back with "You should not have believed me, for virtue / cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish / of it. I loved you not." Hamlet admits that he was deceiving her the whole time. This was likely a major factor in Ophelia's descent into madness and eventually, death. Again, Ophelia is the victim.

Throughout the play, Hamlet and Ophelia have a very strong love connection. They loved each other and wanted to eventually get married. Hamlet and Ophelia hit some bumps in the road in their relationship but they always secretly wanted to be together. In Act 1, Scene 3, It was hard for Ophelia to comprehend when Polonius told her that he thought Hamlet's love for her wasn’t real, but she didn’t know what to believe. When Hamlet could no longer see Ophelia he began to get mad a frustrated, to add on also that he was going crazy over his own father's death.

Ophelia, ever since her introduction, has been introduced to be a sweet and sympathetic person, providing the play with emotional moments, but her death was used as a bait and switch by Shakespeare towards audience members who had expected her to change the play’s somber mood to more hopeful one, which in turn makes the play even more tragic. After she had been visited by an apparently crazed Hamlet, she tells Polonius about the visit, prompting him to believe that the young prince is crazy in love, and goes out to tell the king. After it was explained to Claudius, and Hamlet’s former friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern failed to find the underlying cause of his madness, Polonius makes Ophelia approach Hamlet while he and the king hide and monitor his behavior.

           Ophelia allowed herself to become a sort of marionette in Polonius' schemes toward understanding the seemingly mad prince. While her relationship with Hamlet was on the line, she allowed Polonius to commandeer the strings that determined her actions. Polonius was determined that Hamlet's supposed madness stemmed from lovesickness for Ophelia. He convinced Ophelia that her betrayal of Hamlet was a necessary evil and she began to relay all of Hamlet's messages and attempts at communication to him. He told the king and queen:

In the play Hamlet, deception is a major factor in the cause of the deaths of all those who die in the play, including Hamlet himself. The following paragraphs will outline the deception involved in the deaths of various characters including: Polonius, Gertrude, Laertes, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Old Hamlet; as well as the downfall of the antagonist and protagonist: Claudius and Hamlet themselves.

In Hamlet, Ophelia is the pawn used to lie, while Hamlet is the victim. This is expressed when Polonius tells Ophelia to act as if she was reading while Polonius spies on Hamlet. Polonius says: “Read on this book,/ That show of such an exercise may color/ Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this –/ ‘Tis too much proved—that with devotion’s visage/ And pious action we do sugar o’er/ The devil himself” (III.i.44-49). This supports the argument that Polonius uses Ophelia as a pawn to lie, and she complies. This also highlights Ophelia’s innocence and dependence on her father. Once she loses the two men, she has no support. On the other hand, Hamlet is lied to by almost all the characters in the play. When Ophelia is asked to “bump into” Hamlet and find out the reason for his madness, Polonius and Claudius are spying on them. Hamlet realizes that she is lying and asks her “Where’s your father?/ At home, my lord” (III.i.131-133). Ophelia is being used as a pawn and she believed that it was for Hamlet’s sake so she did what her father said and lied to him. This is also an example of Hamlet being lied to. Considering Ophelia is not married, she has to obey Polonius’s

The central theme of deception in the play “Hamlet” results in a chain reaction of events that leads to the death of numerous characters. First and foremost, when Hamlet speaks to his mother, Gertrude in her room about her marriage to Claudius and the events that take place during the Mousetrap play, Polonius hides behind the wall tapestry. Hamlet soon realizes that someone is listening to their conversation and accidentally stabs Polonius, thinking it was Claudius. Hamlet exclaims, “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell./…Take thy fortune:/Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger” (Shakespeare III.iv.36-38). Initially, it appears that Hamlet and Gertrude are alone but it is soon realized that this is not the case. Hamlet understands that he did not mean to kill

Being a deceitful person can cause tremendous consequences. The determination of your dishonesty will conquer you as a human being in the end, and in time, result in something horrid. This is proven to be accurate in one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, Hamlet. There is a saying by Robert S. Miola that all of us can gain retribution, have deceitful traits, but in the end, will capture us and our actions will ultimately result in chaos. During the play, it will introduce us to different instances that in the end will catch upon with each other. More importantly, the reason for these events occurring is due to King Hamlet being executed by Claudius, the new king, and also his brother. Later on, Hamlet has the urge to conflict revenge,

Unlike Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Shakespeare’s Hamlet focuses much more on the theme of deception. The main protagonist, Hamlet, must decide whether or not to act on his feelings towards Claudius. The ghost of Hamlet’s father revealed to Hamlet that Claudius was the person who killed him and he wants Hamlet to avenge his death. Hamlet had a difficult time accepting what the ghost told him because he knew that there was a possibility that the ghost wasn’t real – it was an evil spirit. His wariness is understandable because there wasn’t a way to detect whether or not a ghost was demonic. Nevertheless, Hamlet pretended to go crazy in order to be capable of determining whether or not Claudius was guilty of committing the murder. He knew that he couldn’t act normal because Claudius would suspect that he knew the truth about the origin of his father’s death, so he decided to put on this act. He decides invite Claudius to a play he calls “The Mousetrap” in order to detect his guilt. Hamlet explains that a person with a clean conscience would act normally to this play, and he proceeds to watch the reaction of Claudius to it. Claudius’ reaction proves that the Ghost was telling the truth, and Hamlet must proceed in acting on revenge for his father. At a point in the play, Hamlet is given an opportunity to kill Claudius, but he refuses. Claudius was engaged in prayer, and Hamlet felt that if he killed him, his soul would be clean and he would go straight to heaven. His rationale is reasonable, but it also represents his hesitation on committing the act. Killing a king would be considered a treasonable crime and Hamlet probably worried about all the consequences he would face if he killed Claudius. Furthermore, he was a grieving child who was struggling with his own problems and murdering Claudius would only add to them. Eventually in Act Five, Hamlet did kill Claudius by forcing him to consume a poison drink, but only after he knew he was set to die. Throughout the play, Hamlet was forced to accept multiple scenarios that he didn’t believe were right. He needed to accept Claudius as the new King, he needed to accept Claudius and his mother’s relationship, and he also needed to accept the fact that his father was dead.