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Claudius – Claudius is the late king Hamlet’s brother. He murders his brother, marries his sister-in-law and ascends to the throne despite the king’s own son Hamlet being alive. Claudius is a very cunning and shrewd man who speaks eloquently and manipulatively trying to justify his actions. He is the person at whom Hamlet’s anger is mainly targeted at.
Claudius gives us the picture of a very crafty person who is very quick to spot areas which can help him and to exploit them. He is a man who tries to turn everything to his advantage. He is also quite shameless about his horrendous deeds though, he does try to ask forgiveness for his crime by trying to pray at which he fails miserably. Claudius also wants to appear as a man befitting for a king and so quotes charming and rich sentences. This can be very well noticed in Act 1 Scene 2, where Claudius, trying to merge the events of his brother’s death and his immediate marriage, uses contradicting and ironical words to justify them. He talks about ‘one auspicious and one dropping eye’ and ‘With mirth in funeral and dirge in marriage’. Claudius is trying to justify his actions of having a marriage so very after the king’s death. He basically plays with sentences. He is also a feared man as said by Laertes “Dread my lord…”. Claudius has this effect of a strong and powerful king.
Claudius also tries to make Hamlet feel as if he were his own father. He calls him “my son” and tries to speak convincingly to him. He does this because he knows that the state of Denmark expected a lot from the young prince and so, he must be in good condition. It can be argued that Claudius here shows some humanity because the tone of his enquiry of Hamlet’s welfare is not purely a make up but there is a tone of genuine concern. Claudius might not be truly concerned about Hamlet’s welfare but his tone of speech makes a writer think as if it was.
Throughout the play, Claudius commits sins like spying upon Hamlet and Ophelia, deporting Hamlet to England and an unsuccessful attempt to execute him, urging Laertes to have an unfair fencing match with Hamlet and poisoning Hamlet’s cup of wine. He pays for his crimes with his own life at the end when Hamlet stabs him and forces him to drink the leftover of the wine. One can learn a moral lesson from Claudius’s life that one who commits such crimes has to pay for it.
Claudius is a very interesting character to read about. He plans his actions carefully and shrewdly and tries to avoid making mistakes. His is quite methodical. He has the power to execute commands at will being a king.
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Polonius – Polonius is the Lord Chamberlain of Denmark. He is a loyal servant of the State. He portrays the picture of an old man, well educated and quite efficient.
Polonius’s first main role comes into play when he gives some advice to Ophelia about Hamlet’s love for her. He calls Hamlet as a young man who was still inexperienced about all these affairs of the heart. She should not take his proposals seriously. He also forbids her to go easily to Hamlet when he called her. She should go only when he commands her to. Polonius also highlights their social differences. Hamlet was from the royalty while she was the daughter of on official. In short, she wasn’t worthy of marrying Hamlet.
Polonius then plays a dubious and unpredictable role. He sends a messenger of his to France to spy on his own son Laertes. He does this to find out about his son’s behaviour in Paris; whether he went to work properly or shirked work; whether he had good habits or roamed around drinking alcohol and drabbling with women. It is basically to see if Laertes had paid any heed to his advices which Polonius had imparted to him before he left for France.
The advice to Ophelia and spying tells us something about Polonius’s character as a father. It shows us that he is over protective. He wants to keep his children away from any vices or harm. But it also shows the lack of trust he has on his children. As a father who has brought up his children properly, Polonius must have some faith in his children that they would be of good character. However, he does not trust them and has his own intensions of ensuring himself about his two children’s character. It also shows that Polonius was a person who greatly believed in social differences and hierarchy. He stresses upon this in his speech to Ophelia. It shows partly that he had the best affairs of Denmark at his heart.
Polonius continues his spying game. One feels as if he is being very nasty doing all this dirty business. When Hamlet acts mad, Ophelia tells Polonius that the cause of Hamlet’s lunacy was his love for her. Polonius urges the king to spy on Hamlet and Ophelia together and to see if this was true. Polonius ends up paying the price for spying when he is killed by Hamlet while spying again on Hamlet and his mother.
Polonius’s role is that of a messenger, carrying information from one place to another and advising people what to do. He overdoes this for which he pays the price with his life. It shows that over inquisitiveness can be dangerous.
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Gertrude – Gertrude is the queen of Denmark, the wife of the late King Hamlet. After the death of King Hamlet, she marries his brother Claudius. Gertrude does not have a good reputation throughout the play. She is portrayed as a weak woman, an unfaithful and disloyal wife. Her main critic is Hamlet who while speaking to himself in soliloquy, criticises his mother as a frail woman. Hamlet confronts his mother again where he tries to tell her about sin of marrying her brother-in-law.
In the whole, Gertrude’s role in the play is not that important. Women, in this play don’t play a very important role. Gertrude’s presence is only to have a character of a queen and to multiply Claudius’s sins.
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Laertes – Laertes is Polonius’s son. He is a good man of good character. He lives in France, working.
Laertes has a major role to play. He brings about the death of Hamlet in a fencing match. Laertes resorts to such a step because of his father’s and sister’s death. When Laertes returns from France, he sees that his father is dead and so is his sister. He is provoked by Claudius who tells him that Hamlet was responsible for both deaths. Laertes, given his pitiful and angry condition, believes Claudius. Claudius hatches a plot to finish of Hamlet whom by now, he has come to regard as a threat. He asks Laertes to invite Hamlet into a fencing match. Laertes would use an unbuttoned sword, against the norms of fencing, with the tip poisoned. Laertes does wound Hamlet but unfortunately, they exchange their swords at one instant and Laertes gets killed by his own poisoned sword.
Laertes’s role is mainly the killer of Hamlet. In order to find a reason to kill him, there occurs a chain of deaths of Polonius and Ophelia, wiping out Laertes’s entire family. This fuels Laertes’s anger which is completely natural.
It is very interesting to note his character in the end, when he is a dying man. When the Queen falls down after drinking the poisoned liquor meant for Hamlet, Laertes, who is wounded and bleeding, tells Hamlet the truth that it was the King who was responsible for all this. He also asks forgiveness from Hamlet and tells him that he will not take the burden of his and his father’s death on him nor will Hamlet’s death come upon Laertes. It is difficult to understand why Laertes does this. It could be that the dying man wanted to die without any burden of concealment in him. Or he might want to die a noble soul as one realising his folly and accepting his mistake. Laertes’s main reason for giving away Claudius is probably the death of the Queen. This could only mean that Laertes did not know that Claudius had other plans to kill Hamlet.
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Ophelia – Ophelia is Polonius’s daughter and Hamlet’s love. Her role, just like Gertrude, is not much. It is mainly to create a tragedy.
Ophelia gives us the picture of an obedient daughter. She obviously loves Hamlet but is not willing to accept it. When she reports to Polonius about Hamlet’s proposals of love, she listens to her father’s advice of ignoring those proposals. When Hamlet, acting mad, enters Ophelia’s room and grabs her, she reports the whole incident to here father. When Polonius suggest to her that he and the king will spy on her and Hamlet together, she agrees without one word of opposition.
Ophelia’s death remains a mystery. When Hamlet is banished to England, she becomes insane herself with untold grief. She slips down from a branch into a well. Whether it really was an accident or suicide remains a mystery.
Ophelia has some beautiful phrases to say. When she sees that Hamlet is mad, her description of a noble soul gone mad in Act3, Scene1 “O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!....” is very beautiful.
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Fortinbras – Fortinbras is the king of Norway. He and his father share the same name. Fortinbras sr. was killed by Hamlet sr. in a battle. For that, young Fortinbras seeks revenge. He makes lots of preparations for war.
Fortinbras is not mentioned much. His role is to give an account of the present situation on Denmark, a defence against his forthcoming invasion. He also gives an account of the future of Denmark after Hamlet’s death. Hamlet, almost dead, announces Fortinbras as the king of Denmark. Fortinbras has a fine speech to say in the end “Let four captains bear Hamlet….” by which he gives Hamlet, a mark of respect by giving him a proper burial.
