Blog post#3

Q: Choose a character who acts in a specifc scene to achieve a specific goal. Descibe what happens in detail. Discuss this character's motivation in this scene and how he/she acheives the goal. Also, connect this to the character's larger goals and motivation for the play in general. What does the character want in the big picture and how do the actions in this scene help or harm that?

A:

In the play Hamlet, different characters have different distinct features that all of them stand out of the play to give unforgettable impression on the audience. For me, not only Hamlet's characteristics are impressive but also Claudius is interesting.

Throughout the play, Claudius is a greedy, intelligent and capable ruler. He first appears in the play in the wedding ceremony and gives a speech to make his court and country proud, addressing his brother's death and the potential conflict with Norway. Claudius is definitely afraid of people's rebellion due to the change of government, but he juxtaposes the loss of the old King and the new beginning people will have under his control. Claudius murders his brother, the old King, in order to gain more power in the country. And this is the whole want Claudius has. He desires the crown, the power, and the feeling of being a ruler of a whole country. The specific scene of murdering the old King taken place in the garden of the Denmark castle when the old King is sleeping on the chair on a winter afternoon without servants' care. Claudius, the brother of the old King, walked toward him carefully with almost no sound. He stares at his brother, as though he is staring at a treasure which is ready to be in his pocket. Then he takes out a little bottle with poison, carefully pours it into his brother's ear. A few moments later, the old King stirs up and begins to tic and then dies in a few minutes. Claudius must haven't realized that the phenomenon of touching the poison will be that terrible. He is scared and then  runs away. To kill the old King is to help Claudius take the thown instead of others, and that is the motivation of murdering the old King.

Also, in order to put the crown on his own head, Claudius marries Gertude, the Queen and wife of the previous King. I believe he also loves Gertude sincerely, but more than it he just wants to be the new King. Claudius is probably not a really bad person with no human nature of kindness, but in the play he also feels guilty and regretful. His deeds, on occasion, weigh heavy on his heart:

 O, 'tis true!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! 

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art, 

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it 

Than is my deed to my most painted word: 

O heavy burden! (3.1.49-53) 

He tries to ask God for forgiveness as well. But when facing the whole benefits he gets from being a ruler of Denmark, he know that he can't give them up:

My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer 
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder?
That cannot be, since I am still possess'd 
Of those effects for which I did the murder, 
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. (3.4.52-55)

No matter how Claudius regrets for what he's done to his brother, the desire of power leads him to be like humanless and indifferent ruler.