Hamlet

The play, Hamlet has a complicated plot of appearances, deception and corruption. The former King of Denmark is dead and his brother has usurped the crown whose rightful owner is that of Hamlet, his nephew. He uncovers through the visit of the former Kings apparition that his father was actually murdered by his brother, Claudius. Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, is disgusted at his mother’s hasty and incestuous remarriage to non other than the murderer of the former King, his father and her husband.

Throughout the play you can see the use of playing or acting. Everyone is avoiding the truth that the King was murdered by his brother whom then usurped the crown. They all are playing a role in which to keep their real intensions secret from non other than each other which will eventually lead to their destruction. The King, Claudius, is trying to cover up his crimes of, murder, incest, and usurpation. The Queen was possibly in on the murder of her husband and has had an overhasty remarriage. Hamlet states “quote” he will act mad in order to through people off that he his going to avenge his father’s death.

Hamlet best describes the importance of this playing by stating, “… the purpose of playing, both at first and now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure” (3.2.21-25). In this he states that the purpose of playing is to teach a moral and that art (theater) is much like a mirror, it reflects what is