Claudius is the primary antagonist in Hamlet. He thwarts Hamlet by killing his father. And when he usurps the Danish throne, Claudius denies Hamlet the future that rightfully belongs to him. Claudius additionally frustrates Hamlet by marrying his mother, Gertrude.
King Claudius is a fictional character and the main antagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. He is the brother to King Hamlet, second husband to Gertrude and uncle and later stepfather to Prince Hamlet.
They all have a claim to the title; however, the correct answer is Hamlet. Hamlet not only behaves villainously throughout his eponymous play, but has somehow persuaded generations of audiences and critics that he is actually its hero. That is what takes his villainy to the next level.
Hamlet begins by insulting himself. 'O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! ': Hamlet considers himself a 'rogue' (i.e. a cheat) and a 'peasant slave' (i.e. a base or low coward) for failing to do the brave and honourable thing and exact revenge on Claudius for his father.
In Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, prince Hamlet repeatedly calls Claudius a "villain".
Victim of fate
At the beginning of “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, the young prince Hamlet is clearly the victim of a tragic fate. He has recently lost his father and must now watch as his mother remarries after only a few weeks - to his uncle.
Claudius is the primary antagonist in Hamlet. He thwarts Hamlet by killing his father. And when he usurps the Danish throne, Claudius denies Hamlet the future that rightfully belongs to him.
Disgusted with himself for having failed to gain his revenge on Claudius, Hamlet declares that from this moment on, his thoughts will be bloody.
Hamlet is seriously his own worst enemy. All that thinking, feeling, and brooding about his father's murder and his mom's sex life gets in the way of Hamlet's quest for revenge. In fact, Hamlet admits it: he says "Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;/ His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy" (5.2.
Two of the characters that showed signs of insanity are Claudius and Ophelia. Hamlet faked his madness at the beginning of the play for the sake of revenge for his father. However, later he was indeed behaving like a mad man.
Gertrude betrays Hamlet and the late King Hamlet by marrying Claudius. Hamlet, being still depressed about his father's death was further upset and felt betrayed by his mother when she quickly married Claudius. By marrying her former husband's brother, she also betrayed the late King Hamlet.
Hamlet is Shakespeare's absolute hero. He is heroic even in the Greek sense: he is larger than life. Though "Something [was] rotten in the state of Denmark" (I, iv, 90) at the beginning of the play, all that rottenness is dead at the end-and Hamlet's story remains.
In Act 5 we see the tragic conclusion of the play – Hamlet accepts Laertes' challenge and is poisoned during the fight. Laertes, Claudius and Gertrude also all die. The only central character left alive at the end of the play is Horatio and Hamlet asks him, as he dies, to 'tell my story'.
Hamlet reconfirms his sincere love for Ophelia at her death bed. He calls her “Fair Ophelia” (Act 5, scene 1, 228), implying he sees her as pure and virtuous. A real madness replaces a fake one. Hamlet proclaims that “forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum.”
The biggest betrayal Hamlet suffered was done to him by his uncle, Claudius, which then caused the betrayal of his mother, Gertrude, who then convinced Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to betray Hamlet as well.
Hamlet, now free to act, mistakenly kills Polonius, thinking he is Claudius. Claudius sends Hamlet away as part of a deadly plot. After Polonius's death, Ophelia goes mad and later drowns.
Hamlet continues to show no remorse for killing Polonius by mistake; he seems to think it was worth it for taking the risk of rashly slaying whoever was behind the curtain for the chance that it might be Claudius.
His death is arguably not deliberate suicide: he is stabbed by Laertes' poisoned sword. However, Hamlet uses Laertes' hatred of him for killing Polonius and driving Ophelia mad as a proxy for his own self-hatred over Ophelia and Polonius, and arguably was not interested in surviving the duel.
The first major quote that suggests Hamlet's flaw of procrastination is, “Haste me to know't; that I, with wings as swift/ As meditation or the thoughts of love,/ May sweep to my revenge” (Hamlet, Act I: Scene v, 29-31). This quote is spoken by Hamlet to the Ghost of Hamlet's father.
Saying that he is the spirit of Hamlet's father, he demands that Hamlet avenge King Hamlet's murder at the hands of Claudius. Hamlet, horrified, vows to “remember” and swears his friends to secrecy about what they have seen.
Rejected by Hamlet, Ophelia is now desolate at the loss of her father. She goes mad and drowns.
Hamlet remains sane throughout the entire play and uses his false insanity as a way of tricking Claudius and his cohorts. At no point during the play does Hamlet display signs of actually being insane, he simply uses the false pretense of insanity to attempt to achieve his goal of revenge.
Hamlet delays killing Claudius because Claudius represents Hamlet's innermost desires to sleep with his mother Gertrude. And by killing Claudius, Hamlet would be killing a part of himself.
Claudius's love for Gertrude may be sincere, but it also seems likely that he married her as a strategic move, to help him win the throne away from Hamlet after the death of the king.
Poison is used as a weapon throughout this play. Old Hamlet, the King of Denmark, is poisoned by his brother, Claudius. Claudius uses the poison for his own selfish ambition and marries Old Hamlet's widow, Gertrude, making him the new King of Denmark.