Shakespeare's Play Hamlet Claudius

One's enormous appetite for success can transform their intentions and lead to an overall destructive climb towards their triumph. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet he focuses on the theme of ambition and how it defines oneself. Ambition or addiction for power and control can cause you to make irrational decisions and lead to your own undoing.

Through Hamlet Shakespeare shows us how being too ambitious can push people away and turn them against you. In the play after Claudius has gained the power of the throne his brother turns against him in the afterlife and so does his nephew / new stepson. Not long after Claudius took control of the kingdom and married his brother’s wife, the previous king came back to haunt his own son. In the beginning of the play Hamlet was taken out by some of the guards to be shown what they believed was the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Before Hamlet the ghost had talken to no one, but once he was alone the ghost approached Hamlet and told him the story of how he truly died. This is shown with the quote “Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, With juice of cursed hebona in a vial, And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distilment.” The ghost also asks Hamlet to take revenge for him by killing Claudius. At first Hamlet is weary about killing his uncle, so he tries to confirm it is true. Once Hamlet is sure Claudius is guilty he looks for opportunities to take his life, but he is determined to do it at the right time. When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage; Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed; At game, a-swearing, or about some act That has no relish of salvation in't Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, And that his soul may be as damn'd and black As hell, whereto it goes.” Hamlet does not want to kill him at a time where he will be rewarded, but punished for his sins. Claudius has committed extremely immoral acts that have caused him to have people who once held him dear to their hearts turn against him and plan his death.

In the play William Shakespeare shows us how ambition and thirst for power can result in people you once loved getting hurt by your hand. He shows us this using Claudius and how his actions affect Hamlet and his new wife Gertrude. In act IV scene vii Claudius and Laertes go through several different plots of how to kill Hamlet and they come to decision they will poison a sword and make it look like an accident. Also Claudius will poison a goblet of wine for Hamlet to drink, so that even if Laertes fails to draw blood, Hamlet will die. This is proven with the quote “And that he calls for a drink, I’ll have prepared him A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping If he by chance escape your venom’s stuck.” Later on in the play when Claudius is trying to poison Hamlet with the wine, he tells his wife not to drink from the goblet of wine, but when she grabs it he protests no further because he is afraid