deception in hamlet essay

Hamlet Deception Essay

Hamlet is a story about deception. The main character, Hamlet, is caught in a web of lies and deceit. He must decide who to trust and who to believe. The other characters in the play are also involved in deception. Ophelia deceives her father, Polonius. Gertrude deceives her son, Hamlet. Claudius deceives everyone by murdering his brother and marrying his sister-in-law. Even the ghost of Hamlet’s father is involved in deception. He tells Hamlet to kill Claudius, but does not tell him the whole truth about what happened.

Deception is a major theme in Hamlet. It is used by the characters to get what they want. It is also used to mislead the audience. The play is full of lies, half-truths, and false appearances. Nothing is what it seems. This makes the play very confusing and difficult to understand.

There are many examples of deception in Hamlet. Hamlet pretends to be mad in order to fool Claudius and Polonius. He also pretends to be in love with Ophelia so that she will tell her father what he is planning. Ophelia pretends to be mad so that she will not have to marry Hamlet. Gertrude pretends to be innocent even though she knows about Claudius’s murder of her husband. Even the ghost is deceptive. He does not tell Hamlet the whole story about his death.

Deception in Hamlet In today’s environment, it is near- impossible to go a day without encountering some form of deception, whether through hearing about it, witnessing it, or experiencing it firsthand. William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet deals extensively with deception. The play shows that deceit is a useful instrument for Hamlet and Claudius to achieve their goals.

The play is set in the kingdom of Denmark, and follows the story of Hamlet, who is grieving the death of his father. Hamlet’s uncle Claudius has taken the throne and married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude. Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his father, who tells him that Claudius murdered him. Hamlet vows to take revenge on Claudius and sets out to deceive those around him in order to accomplish his goal.

One example of deception in the play is when Hamlet pretends to be insane in order to fool those around him. He does this because he knows that if people think he is crazy, they will not suspect him of plotting against Claudius. Throughout the play, Hamlet says and does things that make it seem like he is losing his mind. For example, he talks to himself, acts erratically, and makes crude jokes. This deception allows Hamlet to get close to Claudius and eventually kill him.

Another example of deception in the play is when Hamlet arranges for a play that will re-enact his father’s murder. He does this in order to see Claudius’s reaction and confirm his guilt. When Claudius sees the play, he becomes agitated and leaves the room. This confirms Hamlet’s suspicion that Claudius is guilty and helps him move forward with his plan to take revenge.

Deception is a difficult but necessary tool. It can be used to accomplish goals, get information, or protect oneself. In ‘Hamlet’, Shakespeare uses deception to move the plot forward and keep the characters safe. While it is not always a moral act, it can be a necessary one.

Claudius and Hamlet use deception to gather information for personal gain. Claudius is a master of deception, deceiving everyone in his life. He lied about his brother’s death to everyone around him: “How true it is too true! My conscience receives a resounding lash from that speech!” The plastering art has beautified the harlets’ cheek. Is not the thing that helps its ugliness greater than my deed? O terrible weight!) (III.iii.55-60)

Claudius is also deceiving Gertrude, his wife and Hamlet’s mother: “Mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier. In his lawless fit behind the arras hearing something stir he whips his rapier out and cries ‘ A rat! a rat!’ And so dies”(III.iv.23-28).

Hamlet’s deception is a little different than Claudius’. Hamlet uses people to get information that will help him with his revenge plot against Claudius. An example of this would be Polonius. Polonius was always trying to figure out what was wrong with Hamlet and would go to great lengths to try and find out. Hamlet used this to his advantage and would give Polonius false information so he could find out what Claudius was up to.

“For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion- Have you a daughter? . . . let her not walk i’ th’ sun: conception is a blessing, but as your daughter may conceive- Friend, look to ‘t”(III.ii.1-16). Hamlet also uses Ophelia as part of his deception. He tells her that he never loved her and says some pretty hurtful things to her.

“Get thee to a nunnery: go, farewell! Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell”(III.i.136-141). Although Hamlet’s deception might not be as bad as Claudius’, he is still using people to get what he wants. In the end, both Claudius and Hamlet use deception for their own personal gain.

Claudius is remorseful for murdering King Hamlet, his brother. He employed deceit to his own advantage because as a result of King Hamlet’s death, Claudius has become king. Second, Claudius tells Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to determine Hamlet by spending time with him, but he sent them on behalf of himself to observe Hamlet.

This is another example of Claudius using deception for his own personal gain. Lastly, Gertrude gets upset with Hamlet because he killed Polonius. Hamlet tells her that it was actually the king who was behind all of this and she should be more concerned about him. This is the biggest act of deception in the play because Hamlet is trying to protect his mother from knowing that he killed her husband.

Claudius is a very deceptive character and he uses this to his advantage throughout the play. He first deceives King Hamlet by killing him and then taking his place as king. He also deceives Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by sending them to spy on Hamlet. Lastly, he deceives Gertrude by telling her that Hamlet is the one who killed Polonius.

Hamlet is also a very deceptive character. He deceive his mother by telling her that it was actually Claudius who killed Polonius. He also deceives Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by pretending to be mad. Lastly, he deceived Claudius by feigning madness.

In conclusion, deception is a key theme in Hamlet and it is used by both Claudius and Hamlet to further their own agendas.

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Traps and Deception in Hamlet Brendan O'Loughlin

When Hamlet’s father orders him to kill Claudius, Hamlet’s reaction is one of questioning and disbelief. While he feels strongly about the murder of his father and yearns to discover the killer, he harbors suspicions about the truth behind the ghost’s jarring indictment of his uncle Claudius. So, Hamlet decides to put on a play: a trap to expose the potentially sullied conscience of the king. Without examining the results of this scheme, its basic structure is one used by nearly every character in the play. They do not immediately accost the culprit; rather, the characters set up small, contained traps and patiently wait for the results. These traps are not always dire, seen in Polonius’s plan to discover Hamlet’s intentions in loving Ophelia. In a wider scope, the play as a whole is a deeply intertwined and complex web of traps and plots, from which only Horatio escapes by the end of the play. As a commentary on human behavior, Shakespeare includes this theme to indicate that there is always a winner and a loser, or in Polonius’s terms, a springe and a woodcock. However, ironically, the winner is not always the spy and the loser is not always the culprit. As a result, the line between hero and villain does not remain...

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William Shakespeare

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Hamlet is full of references to the wide gulf that often exists between how things appear and how they really are. From Hamlet ’s own “craft[ed]” madness to Claudius ’s many schemes and plots involving Polonius , Ophelia , Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern to the very foundation of Denmark’s political stability (or lack thereof), things within Elsinore castle are hardly ever as they seem. Hamlet ’s characters’ collective desire to make sense of the difference between what’s real and what’s not drives them to deception, cruelty, and indeed even madness. In acting mad, Hamlet succeeds in driving himself mad; in pretending to spurn Hamlet’s affections, Ophelia actually creates a searing rift between them; in trying to ignore the fact that her new husband murdered her old one, Gertrude forgets the truth and abandons her moral compass. Ultimately, Shakespeare makes the slightly metaphysical argument that the desire to determine which aspects of a person’s character or actions are “real” or intentional actually serves to expose the fact that there is, perhaps, sometimes no difference between what is real and what is perceived; the identities people perform and the choices they make, even in jest, become their realities.

Throughout the play, many of the major characters find themselves confounded by the gulf between how things appear to be and how they really are—even as they themselves engage in subterfuge and masquerades in repeated attempts to present themselves other than as they are, or deliberately mislead one another. Hamlet is the most egregious example of this behavior—he pretends to be mad in order to confuse the members of court at Elsinore and make them believe he’s crazy or blind to what’s going on at the castle, so that he can more sneakily investigate Claudius and come to a conclusion about whether or not his uncle really did murder his father. In his attempts to pass himself off as mad, Hamlet spurns, denigrates, and verbally harasses Ophelia and his mother, Gertrude; entangles two of his old school friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a wild goose chase that leads to their deaths; and berates, offends, and condemns Gertrude as he attempts to ascertain her complicity (or lack thereof) in King Hamlet’s demise. Even as Hamlet deceives those around him in an attempt to save his own skin, he worries incessantly about the guises others adopt to survive at court. He lambasts Ophelia—and, by proxy, all women—for wearing makeup on their faces, accusing them of presenting themselves other than as they are. He makes fun of Polonius’s wormy, fawning obsequiousness to the king and queen, even though he knows it is the job of courtiers and councilors to serve the monarchy. He calls out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as players in his mother and uncle’s plot to get to the root of his own (false) madness, even though he knows they, too are at the mercy of royalty, unable to refuse the demands of their rulers. Hamlet’s constant anxiety about being lied to, or merely shown a version of reality that runs counter to the truth, is the subject of several length monologues and soliloquies—but ultimately, Hamlet’s endless inquiries into the morality of constructed appearances lead nowhere: at the end of the day, he is complicit in his own worst fears.

Other characters who bring into question the gulf between appearance and reality include the ghost of Hamlet’s father, Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, Polonius, and Ophelia. The ghost of Hamlet’s father claims to be the late King Hamlet—but Hamlet himself has reservations about the ghost’s true nature which are further called into question when the ghost appears to Hamlet a second time inside of Gertrude’s chambers. Gertrude claims to not be able to see the ghost, allowing for several possibilities: the ghost may indeed be a figment of Hamlet’s own imagination, or Gertrude may be pretending not to be able to see the ghost for fear of admitting to her complicity in his murder (or simply her indifference to marrying his killer to retain her own political position). The ghost itself tampers with the denizens of Elsinore’s ideas about “reality,” inspiring awe and fear in Horatio, Marcellus , and other watchmen and sentinels. Gertrude, meanwhile, appears innocent and ignorant of her husband’s murder—but she may, in reality, be affecting innocence just as Hamlet affects madness as a cover for a darker motive. Polonius, too, is guilty of presenting a version of himself that runs counter to the truth of who he is: he makes claims about himself and offers advice that contradict his own actions, such as when he tells Laertes “to thine own self be true,” contradicting his own behavior as a fawning courtier loyal to the whims of his superiors, or when he claims that “brevity is the soul of wit” before embarking on several lengthy, long-winded monologues. Ophelia claims to be pure, honest, and undesirous of Hamlet’s sexual or romantic attention—and yet their interactions seem to suggest that she and Hamlet have a long (and lurid) history, making her desperate attempts at purporting her purity all the more pathetic when seen through Hamlet’s eyes. Ultimately, Hamlet, who has been pretending to be mad for so long, drives himself to the edge of sanity, adopting a kind of nihilism when it comes to questions of life and death, morality, and reality itself. Gertrude, who pretends to be an innocent victim, becomes one when she unwittingly drinks poisoned wine intended for Hamlet. Polonius, who sacrificed his moral compass in service to a corrupt crown, is held up as a tragic loss for the court after his death, revered and mourned by the king. Ophelia, who denied her love for Hamlet in an attempt to appease her father, is buried as a virgin, in spite of the play’s suggestion that she was not pure when she died. All of these characters become the things they once merely pretended to be—and the line between appearance and reality grows blurrier and blurrier as the play progresses.

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most complex plays, noted throughout history for its ambiguous moral center, deep existentialism, and deft exploration of appearance versus reality. As Shakespeare shows how fine the line between appearance and reality really is, he transforms the play into a cautionary tale about the dangers of adopting behaviors, traits, and ways of moving through the world that obscure or corrupt the truth of who one really is.

Appearance vs. Reality ThemeTracker

Appearance vs. Reality Quotes in Hamlet

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not “seems.”

This above all—to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

O, villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form, in moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?

The play’s the thing, Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

To be or not to be—that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them.

Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me…

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery… ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

CLAUDIUS: What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite jest… Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?

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Essay: Deception in Hamlet

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Deception and lies are one of the many actions that can put us in difficult situations which can lead to unfortunate consequences. Deception is also used in many fictional stories to add suspense to the storyline and really develop a plot that would keep readers coming back for more. In Hamlet, a play written by William Shakespeare, Deception plays a major role in the storyline. Hamlet was placed between the 14th and 15th century in Denmark. Its a play about royalty, love and most importantly, murder. The play starts off with Claudus, king Hamlets murdering him and taking the crown, power and queen Gertrude while deceiving everyone saying it was a snake that poisoned him and hiding the true fact that he killed his own brother and taking all of his fortunes. The story goes on with Hamlet griefing about his father’s passing until he discovers the truth about what actually happened to his father, then Hamlet plots to deceive everyone and put on a false persona of him being insane to avenge his father’s death by murdering Claudius. The theme of deception plays a big role in the entire storyline, as one thing leads onto another, with death being a major theme with the end goal of Hamlet killing Claudius in the end while a chain of events that occur that results to a lot of the other central characters also facing their death in the play because of deception. Claudius deceives the entire family by playing off king Hamlet’s death as an ‘accident’ while taking in all of his fortunes. His actions of deception result in the death of Polonius, Gertrude and also Ophelia. Claudius and Polonius come up with a plan on spying on Hamlet to find out what has caused him to act so out of character which ended up getting Polonius killed by spying on the conversation Hamlet had with his mother Gertrude. Claudius also deceives Gurtude when he plots to murder Hamlet with Laertes to poison the drink given to Hamlet which Gurtude ends up drinking and poisoning herself. “Gertrude, do not drink.” “I will my lord, I pray you pardon me.” “it is posion’d cup. It is too late.” (Shakespeare V II 282 – 284). This reflects on how Claudius kept the secret of the poison from his wife and because of his actions the death of his wife occurs. Hamlet also deceives Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by using them in the play that showed a father getting murdered to get Claudius to confess what he did. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern also tried to deceive Hamlet when they were ordered by Claudius to occupy him to England where Claudius sent a note on that said to execute Hamlet upon his arrival. Their disloyalty and dishonesty is also a reason for their death when they were sent by Claudius to keep an eye on Hamlet. “But in the beaten way of friendship, what makes you at Elsinore?” “To visit you, My Lord, No other occasion.” (Shakespeare II II 266 – 267). They deceive Hamlet right in front of his face and say they are just here to visit him hiding the truth that they were sent by the king to spy on him. Hamlets seeing the ghost of his father had a huge role in Hamlet’s deception. “O wicked wit, and gifts that have the power so to seduce!- won to his shameful lust that will of my most seeming virtuous queen.” (Shakespeare I V 45 – 47). This was what started off Hamlet putting on a false persona to trick everyone when his father was explaining to him how to own brother stole his wife, which sets off Hamlet to create a plan to deceive everyone and avenge his father’s death. Ophelia also was in on trying to deceive Hamlet. “Where is your father?” “At home, my lord.” “Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in’s own house. Farewell.” (Shakespeare III I 130 – 133). In this Ophelia is trying to mislead Hamlet into believing that her father is home when then the truth is that she has been set up by Polonius and Claudius to spy on Hamlet and find the answer to all this madness. Hamlet does not believe Ophelia so he gets very violent and attempts to create a scene to find out where Polonius and Claudius are hiding. All these central characters used deception in a way to mislead each other to mislead them into believing other assumptions which resulted in them dreadful consequences. Deception in Hamlet is widely accepted as being one of the main themes of the play. Out of all of the events leading to Hamlet’s death, the problems where a result of spying cost him the most. In the play, deception is a major factor in the cause of the deaths of all those who die, including Hamlet himself. The Queen from deceiving Claudius and keeping the secret that Hamlet put on a fake persona, Claudius for deceiving everyone by killing his own brother, and then later on plotting with Laertes on poisoning Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern trying to deceive their childhood friend Hamlet by obeying by Claudius’ commands, Ophelia in trying to deceive Hamlet and help her father spy on Hamlet. All are either behind deceptions or being afflicted by them. Without deception within this play, the plot would be severely lacking in being interesting. The entire plot is set up by Claudius’s deception of murdering King Hamlet and is carried by Hamlet deceiving everybody into thinking he is a mad man. Without deception, this play would struggle to keep readers entertained, and therefore it is one of the most important themes in Hamlet.

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Hamlet: Corruption, Deception, Dramatic Techniques

“throughout the play “hamlet”, shakespeare makes effective use of a variety of dramatic techniques to evoke a world full of deception and corruption.” .

Thematic Exploration of Deceit in Hamlet: Analytical Review

• Categories: Hamlet Literature Review William Shakespeare

About this sample

Words: 1090 |

Published: Dec 3, 2020

Words: 1090 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Works Cited

• Shakespeare, William, and Cyrus Hoy. Hamlet. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.

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