Student Essay on Analysis of Hamlet, Laertes, and King Claudius

Analysis of Hamlet, Laertes, and King Claudius

Summary:   In the play Hamlet, Hamlet, Laertes, and King Claudius can be analyzed through their affections towards Ophelia. Ophelia's actions and her people's affection towards her contributes to the analysis of the play.

Ophelia's madness and later on, her funeral are probably the main landmarks into the analyzing the traits of those who is honest, deserving, and just among the main actors. To some, the grief and love expressed in Ophelia's funeral by Hamlet has been out of guilt, while Laertes love and his grief are genuine. King Claudius also shows his love to Ophelia's in subtle ways during his examination in Act Four. It is through Ophelia's actions that contributed many of the statements made by characters during the play Hamlet.

The grief and love that Laertes expressed in the funeral shows his closeness to Ophelia. An example of Laertes love can be shown through a quote taken in Ophelia's funeral: "Hold off the earth a while, till I have caught her once more in mine arms" (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 256-257). This quote also shows that Laertes misses her sister a great deal that he would leap into the grave to hold her, even though she wasn't there in spirit. He than says to the crowd around him to "pile your dust upon the quick and dead" (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 258). In this quote, Laertes asks to be buried with his sister because he can't bear the pain of losing his sister. To emphasis how much Laertes wishes to be buried, he includes that he should be buried as high as "a mountain" such as "old Pelion or the skyish head of blue Olympus." (Act 5, Scene 1, line 259 - 61). Laertes stresses on how much he wishes to be buried with Ophelia by using the height of the Greek mountains in a simile. Although Laertes grief and love for Ophelia is shown in her funeral, having to lose his father around the same time Ophelia died may have contributed to his radical actions as the leaping into the grave with Ophelia and the wishing to those around him to bury him with Ophelia.

As Hamlet listen to Laertes taking on such an emphasis in his grief and sorrow, Hamlet becomes frustrated and lashes out at Laertes, saying that no one could have loved Ophelia as much as he. He exclaims that his "phase of sorrow conjures the wandering stars" (Act 5, Scene 1, line 265). Hearing such grief from Laertes, Hamlet says that he "will fight with him [Laertes] upon his theme until my [Hamlet's] eyelids will no longer wag. " The theme being that nobody loved Ophelia as much as Laertes. Hamlet grows jealous in that Laertes is expressing more love than Hamlet so he begins refer to Laertes' statement of him wishing to be buried as high as the greek mountains. Hamlet says that he doesn't wish to be buried with Ophelia as high as the greek mountains but higher (Act 5, Scene 1, line 291). Ophelia's funeral scene shows how much Hamlet appears to have loved Ophelia.

Shakespeare didn't include any important lines of King Claudius showing his love for Ophelia at her funeral, but he did in the in Act four. Within Act four, at Ophelia's height of insanity, King Claudius calls Ophelia as "Poor Ophelia" (Act 4, Scene 5, 83) and "Pretty Ophelia" (Act 4, Scene 5, 55). King Claudius names Ophelia as such because he pities her and her current state. This shows King Claudius may have loved Ophelia to an extent as a daughter. King Claudius also shows his love for Ophelia by observing Ophelia's grief. The King explains that when her "sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalias!" (Act 4, Scene 5, 77-78). He pities Ophelia in that Ophelia has been heartbroken twice, once by Hamlet's rejection to her love and another by her father's death. As King sends Ophelia off, he asks Horatio to "follow her close" and also to "give her good watch" (Act 4, Scene 5, 74). This quote shows how much the King loved Ophelia that he asks Horatio to watch over her.

Honesty, deserving and just are rare qualities in the play, Hamlet and Hamlet, Claudius, nor Laertes inherit all of such qualities. Hamlet, in particular, doesn't inherit any of these qualities. Hamlet is neither honest nor just in that he rejects Ophelia's love from the beginning of the play, only to show his love to Ophelia when she is dead. A possibility for Hamlet's exaggerated love for Ophelia could be because he felt guilty for killing her through a sad chain of events. The chain of events began with Hamlet rejecting Ophelia's love it moves a link in the chain as Hamlet kills her father, which the end result made Ophelia insane, and thus leading to her to commit suicide. Hamlet is not just, but a hypocrite. Here is Hamlet who plots to kill the murderer of his father only to become a father murderer himself in act three, scene four. In this scene, when he was with his mother, he kills Polonius for eavesdropping. Instead of understanding the horrible irony of what he has done, he ignores Ophelia's fathers death by shrugging the murder off and smoothly say that he has mistakenly killed the wrong person (Act 3, Scene 4, line 36). Hamlet than continues to plot his vengeance against the man who killed his father. There is no justice in the actions that Hamlet partakes!

Claudius is no better off than Hamlet in the character traits of honesty, deserving and just. The King Claudius is not honest, but a lying, manipulative king. He shows this every time he creates a plan to place him in higher power. An example of his dishonesty is deceiving his wife Gertrude into offering her son a poisoned drink. King Claudius shows that he is not deserving or just in that he kills his brother for throne to Denmark and the former king's wife. There is neither justice nor deserving in such an act.

Laertes may not be just or deserving, but he is at least honest. Laertes is not just or deserving because he agrees into killing Hamlet in a fencing match when King Claudius convinced him that it was Hamlet who killed his father. Laertes is honest in that he truly did love Ophelia and he probably meant all the things he has said to her in her funeral. Even from the beginning of the play, Laertes shows his brotherly love to Ophelia by the way he advised her to stay away from Hamlet. Unlike his father, Polonius, who discourages Ophelia in becoming too close with Hamlet by describing Hamlet as a liar and a cheat Act 1, Scene 3, Line 127), Laertes shows Ophelia the perspective that those who have great power such as princes marry for the "health of the whole state" (Act 1, Scene 3, 21), and not for themselves. Laertes is one of the few people in Hamlet who is honest and does not tend to manipulate nor deceive like Hamlet or Polonius.

Honesty, deserving, and justice have become a rarity among those in the play, Hamlet. These traits have hardly been shown in Hamlet or Claudius. Though Laertes proves to be honest, he also is undeserving and unrighteous. Ophelia's actions and her people's affection towards her contributes to the analysis of the play Hamlet.