How deep is the character of Claudius? Is he Hamlet’s worthy opponent? What
helps him to manipulate people and circumstances?
Claudius is a shrewd king who contrasts sharply with the other male characters in the
play. Most of the other important men in Hamlet are preoccupied with ideas of justice,
revenge, and moral balance, but Claudius is bent upon maintaining his own power. The
old King Hamlet was apparently a stern warrior, but Claudius is a corrupt politician
whose main weapon is his ability to manipulate others through his skillful use of
language. Claudius’s speech is compared to poison being poured in the ear—the method
he used to murder Hamlet’s father. Claudius’s love for Gertrude may be sincere, but it
also seems likely that he married her as a strategic move, to help him win the throne
away from Hamlet after the death of the king. Claudius reveals as much during his
confession in Act III ‘Oh, my offence is rank. It smells to Heaven. It hath the primal
eldest curse upon't, A brother’s murder’. By comparing himself to Cain, Claudius
illustrates that he understands the severity of his sin, and he expresses his sense of his
own moral corruption through images of decay: his sin is “rank” and sends the smell of
rot all the way to heaven. He admits that he can’t truly repent because he retains
possession of the goods that he acquired through sin—Gertrude’s hand and the Danish
throne. Unable to repent, Claudius seeks to rid himself of Hamlet instead. As the play
progresses, Claudius’s ascending fear of Hamlet’s insanity leads him to greater selfpreoccupation; when Gertrude tells him that Hamlet has killed Polonius, Claudius
doesn’t remark that Gertrude might have been in danger, but only that he would have
been in danger had he been in the room. He tells Laertes the same thing as he attempts
to soothe the young man’s anger after his father’s death. Claudius is ultimately too
crafty for his own good. In the end of the play, Claudius is killed by his own cowardly
machination. Hamlet is in two minds about killing Claudius, but when his mother dies
drinking the poison, there’s nothing to stop him.
Hamlet and Claudius are indeed worthy rivals. Although they function within different
moral codes and act to achieve different goals, they are both men of intelligence and
determination. Hamlet and Claudius are both dangerous, because they are skilled in
strategy and deceit. Hamlet plans to unmask Claudius by staging a rewritten play, just
as Claudius cleverly plans to deliver Hamlet to his death at the hands of the English.
When that fails, he plans Hamlet's death in a duel with Laertes.
Claudius and Hamlet both maintain false appearances while striving secretly to destroy
each other. Hamlet wears the mask of madness, while Claudius pretends to be his
loving, concerned parent. Finally, while pursuing their own ends, both men are effective
in engaging others to help them while keeping their secrets.