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Polonius’ demise is fitting to his flaws. He hatches the theory that Ophelia caused Hamlet to go mad by rejecting him. Polonius is forever fomenting intrigue and hiding behind tapestries to spy. Polonius is a windy, pedantic, interfering, suspicious, silly old man, a “rash, intruding fool,” in Hamlet’s phrase. The father of Ophelia and Laertes and the chief adviser to the throne of Denmark. At the end of the play, Hamlet charges Horatio with the task of explaining the pile of bodies to the confused onlookers in court. In a moving tribute just before the play-within-the-play begins, in Act Two scene two, Hamlet praises Horatio as his soul’s choice and declares that he loves Horatio because he is “not passion’s slave” but is rather good-humored and philosophical through all of life’s buffets. Horatio is presented as a studious, skeptical young man, perhaps more serious and less ingenious than Hamlet but more than capable of trading witticisms with his good friend. They know each other from the University of Wittenberg, where they are both students. Gertrude figures prominently in many of the major scenes in the play, including the killing of Polonius and the death of Ophelia. Hamlet attributes this need for a husband to her lustiness. Gertrude loves Hamlet tremendously, while Hamlet has very mixed feelings about her for marrying the (in his eyes) inferior Claudius after her first husband’s death. She seems unaware that Claudius killed her former husband.
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When he is convinced that Hamlet has found him out, Claudius eventually schemes to have his nephew-cum-son murdered Claudius is the only character aside from Hamlet to have a soliloquy in the play. Only as the play goes on do we become certain that he is indeed guilty of murder and usurpation. Claudius appears to be a rather dull man who is fond of the pleasures of the flesh, sex and drinking. He murdered his brother in order to seize the throne and subsequently married Gertrude, his erstwhile sister-in-law. Old Hamlet’s brother, Hamlet’s uncle, and Gertrude’s newlywed husband. After this second appearance, we hear and see no more of him Old Hamlet’s ghost reappears in Act Three of the play when Hamlet goes too far in berating his mother. Hamlet fears (or at least says he fears) that the ghost is an imposter, an evil spirit sent to lure him to hell.
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Old Hamlet appears as a ghost and exhorts his son to kill Claudius, whom he claims has killed him in order to secure the throne and the queen of Denmark. The variety of his moods, from manic to somber, seems to cover much of the range of human possibility It is famously difficult to pin down his true thoughts and feelings - does he love Ophelia, and does he really intend to kill Claudius? In fact, it often seems as though Hamlet pursues lines of thought and emotion merely for their experimental value, testing this or that idea without any interest in applying his resolutions in the practical world. Hamlet is a moody, theatrical, witty, brilliant young man, perpetually fascinated and tormented by doubts and introspection. The ghost of Old Hamlet charges him with the task of killing his uncle, Claudius, for killing him and usurping the throne of Denmark. The son of Old Hamlet and Gertrude, thus Prince of Denmark.