Hamlet Character Profiles: Claudius

Claudius’s one fatal flaw is his thirst for power. Claudius hides this thirst well since most of the manipulation he does is accomplished with few of the characters realizing what he has done. Claudius’s thirst for power starts with the murder of his brother so he may become king. I think that if someone is going to murder there brother it implies they care more about power then anything else. Murdering some random person to achieve a purpose is terrible but to kill your own brother is twice as bad. Claudius obviously does not care about how he gains power, only that he does gain it.

Claudius’s continues trying to gain power through both manipulation of the characters as well as the attempted killing of Hamlet. I think that while Claudius has gained as much power as possible he continues to perform terrible deeds to keep that power for as long as possible. I think that if Claudius simply stopped after killing his brother and did not try to fight to hold onto his power he may have succeeded in staying alive far longer. After all Claudius is killed through his treachery at the end of the play by his own poison and actions toward Hamlet.

Since Hamlet tends to kill people in haste and unthinkingly, Claudius could simply have never given Hamlet an opportunity to act in haste and could have lived far longer. By angering Hamlet and killing Gertrude Claudius might have well have killed himself. While Claudius is a terrible person he is probably better suited to be king then any of the other characters. It sounds like he cares far more about tradition and while there is a discomforting overtone in this Claudius at least appears to be trying to keep some traditions alive that were ignored by his brother.

I personally think Hamlet would make a terrible king simply because he over thinks everything. A king who never acts would be far worse for Denmark than a manipulative, power hungry king. At least Claudius realizes problems and tries to stop them, even if this does lead to his own death. Hamlet as king would be terrible. Denmark is already falling apart and putting Hamlet on the throne to not do anything about it can only make the problem worse. I think the most important thing about Claudius however is how he manipulates people. The largest manipulations are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Laertes and Claudius uses the same tactic on both of them. Claudius plays on what they want and uses it to get them to help him.

With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Claudius uses there want to help there friend Hamlet to get them to spy on Hamlet. Claudius uses Laertes wish to get revenge on Hamlet to convince Laertes to use the poisoned blade. I think the best example of how Claudius can manipulate people is Laertes. When Laertes says that killing Hamlet is “almost ‘gainst my conscience” there is the realization that Laertes has been manipulated into this deceitful killing and that this is not something that he would normally do.

In the end Claudius most certainly gets what he deserves for manipulating and scheming, losing his life and the power he worked so hard to gain. Claudius sees the woman he loved murdered by his own hand, realizes that he can not repent his crimes and is doomed when he dies, and realizes that he has committed a terrible act to gain the power he wanted and will continue to have to commit such crimes to hold onto it.

When Claudius is praying we realize that he wishes he could repent but can not because he is happy with what he has gained. In the end however I think that he could still have cast everything away and repented and that dong so could have saved his life.