Claudius is a weak king, ruled by passion and ambition. Gertrude is a foolish woman, insensitive to the effect of her actions. They are both to blame for the corrupt kingdom in which hamlet finds himself. Do you agree with this assessment?
Answers
The assessment does not seem to be entirely correct as Claudius is portrayed as a proficient ruler and Gertrude is shown as a witty woman who is not given her fair chances.
In the whole play, Hamlet is somehow shown to be on the wrong train of thoughts, despite Claudius being the antagonist.
Both, Gertrude and Claudius show bits of remorse throughout the play for their deeds.
Answer:
I do agree with this assessment because from my perspective I think Claudius is a weak king for taking the advantage and killing his brother old Hamlet by pouring poison into his ear while sleeping in his orchard to gain the whole kingdom, Old Hamlet's wife and his throne for himself. This represents the theme appearance-vs-reality because Claudius seems to be something when he actually is the opposite of it, and because the characters are trying to hide their real emotions and thoughts. For this occurrence I will be able to explain how Claudius and Gertrude are weak and foolish and should not have the right to claim and be in charge of the kingdom. This makes me also think that Claudius is selfish and wants to take over the kingdom instead of his brother, he wants power. However, my personal opinion is mainly that king Claudius and queen Gertrude of Denmark are dreadful and unworthy of the kingdom. By telling that Cladius is a weak king, I know that he is a person unable to get and feel the power he seems to be having, while he also thinks he justified it and deserves it. But in reality, he does not deserve any of the power since he did not use the right way to get it, instead Claudius decided to take the wrong path by killing his brother. Besides, further in the play of Hamlet I got to know that Claudius is actually wearing a mask, pretending he did nothing wrong and that he is no one to blame.