In the light of Hamlet's Act I how does Hamlet establish the theme of appearance and reality?
In the light of Hamlet’s Act I how does Hamlet establish the theme of appearance and reality?
Hamlet suspects ‘something rotten in the state of Denmark’, although observers looking towards the court of Denmark would see an entirely different picture. Lies and deception litter the play covering up the true intentions of the characters throughout.
At the root of the deception in the play is Hamlet’s step-father and king, Claudius. Claudius’s first words in the play show on the surface a proud, honest, honourable king, one who speaks with an ease even announcing that the King’s death should cause the court to ‘bear our hearts in grief,’ the statement, considering Hamlets suspicions of Claudius’s involvement in the Kings death is filled with hypocrisy and deceit. This blatant lie is deduced by Hamlet when Shakespeare introduces the world of the supernatural into the play through the ghost of the dead King. The ghost suggests to Hamlet that there is a disorder to the universe of a macroscopic scale which is due to Claudius disobeying Gods will. Renaissance ideas were around in the early17th century which talked of a medieval chain of being involving God at the top of the chain followed by the divinely appointed King followed by first class, middle class then peasants. The ghost implies that by his murder of the King Claudius has disrupted this order and in this way has set up a link between the supernatural and reality of the world due to the extremity of his actions. Only Hamlet can see behind the true and honest portrayed and can see in reality Claudius is polluted with evil. At the time Queen Elizabeth was coming to the end of her reign and with no apparent successor there was questioning and disorder as to who had the divine right to become the next monarch. Shakespeare seems to have used this idea of divine right in writing this play.
