Another interpretation of a classic

The line that exists between good and evil is easily blurred and Shakespeare's Hamlet exploits the ambiguity of the distinction for dramatic flavor. A close reading of the play will expose the villains as heroes and vice versa. As soon as the reader believes the true nature of a character has been discovered, Shakespeare changes it and the reader is left guessing. Claudius, the most obvious villain, is a perfect step-father figure until act five and Hamlet, always considered the hero, sets up the events that bring about the play's tragic conclusion. We must pause before calling Hamlet a villain, but Claudius deserves our attention as well. One is never a hundred percent sure of the guilt of Claudius, and his "confession" can be argued to mean something other than as proof that Claudius murdered his brother for the throne and queen.

Hamlet, a prince, is an intellectual. He is the inner-directed elitest student who is too caught up in his own world to think about the people around him. When he returns for his father's funeral, he cannot yet move beyond his own mourning. As any child, he is upset by the fact that his mother has wed so soon after his father's death. He displays his depression and garbs himself in its black fabric. Nobody can get to him and his uncle's attempt appears to Hamlet as insult upon injury. Not only has this man married his mother and taken the throne but he also attempts to belittle his emotions by telling him to get over his grief. It was not just any father who died, it was his father, the king, and he will live shielded in his despair until he is ready to leave it.

Hamlet can easily be described as selfish at this point, placing his feelings above those of his family but he is not a bad person. He projects his emotions inward and attempts to analyze their depths. He sees his father, not outwardly, but within his own mind. His friend, though, thinks Hamlet has seen his father's ghost and describes to him the scene he saw and it turns out that the dead king's ghost does visit the castle. The ghost tells his son that Claudius murdered him and Hamlet must take vengeance for his death. The ghost is an outward projection of Hamlet's feelings. He must take revenge, but his inability to act stalls the deed. He refuses to kill Claudius while praying because that will do him good by sending him to heaven while his father sits in hell. Hamlet is torn by inaction until the very end of the play when plunges his sword into Claudius after he realizes that his mother has been poisoned by the murderous king.

The reader has no hard evidence that Claudius has ever killed until the letter ordering that Hamlet be killed is discovered and the final scene in which Hamlet, Laertes, and Gertrude die from actions taken by the King. Hamlet kills much earlier in the play. He kills Polonius and drives his love, Ophelia, to suicide and the deaths of Laertes, Gertrude, and himself can also be attributed to him as well as those of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet is a play of good and evil but all characters can be described as both good and evil at various points. Horatio might be the sole character excluded from this analysis as he remains true to Hamlet throughout the play. Claudius might not have murdered his brother but he does kill, Gertrude marries another too soon after her husband's death and is not able to help her son, Ophelia betrays Hamlet as does Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Polonius enters into affairs in which he does not belong and Laertes is guilty of the same, and Hamlet does not realize that in his pursuit to get revenge his actions are assuring the destruction of those around him.

As we are characters in our own plays, we do not realize those who are good and those who are evil because most people have both elements within them. The environment one is in determines one's actions. Hamlet played a role set by what he thought his uncle did and the actions of Claudius were shaped by those Hamlet pursued. The ghost pushed Hamlet over the edge and he in turn determined the character of Claudius. Nobody is his/her own character; those who surround that person will have an effect as Shakespeare has proven in Hamlet.