The Use of Deception in Hamlet Essay

Deceptive world of Hamlet

Shakespeare uses deception in the play Hamlet for many different reasons. It is a recurring theme of the play. All the characters are under some kind of deception, thus making the theme of deception being the center of the plot and its progression.

Hamlets madness, being the first act of deception that he puts on to draw others attention away from his suspicious activities as he tries to gather evidence against Claudius. The readers are notified of this by Hamlet himself by the end of Act 1 when he decides, To put an antic disposition on (1.5.172) and Horatio is also a part of this deception as he was already aware of it.

The theme continues and again in Act 2 scene 2, during the soliloquy of Hamlet we are annunciated with another deceptive plan of Hamlet.

HAMLET:

Ill have these players

Play something like the murder of my father

Before mine uncle. Ill observe his looks,

. The spirit I have seen

May be a devil hath power, and the devil hath power

T assume a pleasing shape, (2.2.606-612)

After meeting the players Hamlet decides to stage a play, which itself is an elaborate deception. He decides to have a scene similar to the murder of his father and expects to see the guilt on his uncles face during the play as he believes the guilty creature sitting at a play (2.2.601) seeing the same cunning scene will be struck by his consciousness, and then he will be sure about his uncle being the murder of his father. As he fears to be deceived by a devil in the shape of his fathers ghost, as they have the power to appear in any form.

One more important tool of deception used almost throughout the play is surveillance. Ironically, it is mostly used by Polonius, who himself is under the deception that Hamlets irrational behavior is due to Ophelias denial to his love. Firstly, Polonius deceives Laertes when he sends him to Paris with his blessing and then later sends Reynaldo to spy on his every action.

POLONIUS:

And how, and who what means, and where they

keep,

What company, at what expense; and finding

By this encompassment and drift of question

That they do know my son, come you more nearer

Than your particular demands will touch it.