King Claudius Character Analysis

Superior Essays
No human is perfect; the balance of willpower and necessary self-indulgence is such a fine one that even the most perfect of people occasionally make mistakes. True, the most noble of us have more finely tuned the system of giving up the wants and retaining the needs, but isn’t it said that the highest have the furthest to fall?
Aristotle once said that bravery was most valuable when it is strength against wants but least valuable when it is strength against enemies. Throughout literature, many of the conflicts echo this sentiment. For example, in William Shakespeare’s’ “Hamlet”, King Claudius is shown as a coward through his non-discerning murders for personal gain. As well, in “Oedipus Rex”, Oedipus is shown as a prevalent detective with
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Brave is a word often worn proudly on the backs of strong warriors, martyrs, or heroes; people who have made personal sacrifices for other people’s benefits, rather than their own. Claudius was no such person, even going so far as to murder an innocent man in order to gain a position on a well ruled throne. King Hamlet was a wise, kind, and compassionate king, who looked out for his subjects and truly loved his son and wife. Perhaps Claudius would be regaled as a hero if King Hamlet happened to be a bad ruler, one who was unfair and unjust who needed to be removed from his high position, but this was simply not the case. The murder of King Hamlet was an inexcusable act of greed for the furthering of King Claudius’s position in life. King Claudius also showed his selfish nature when he sent Hamlet off to his death on a ship to England. In his attempt to cover up the horrible things he had done to Hamlet’s father, he decided that it would be a good idea to kill Hamlet, too. Claudius’s willingness to sacrifice another person for the sake of his own gain shows his ease in causing harm to another person to make up for his own mistakes. If Claudius were truly a good leader, or if he had wanted to be perceived as brave, he would have owned up to his mistakes even though that would have most probably meant his own death. King Claudius’s lack of morals demonstrated his cowardice and resulted in his death, …show more content…
The first of his long line of sons stretching over 100 years, Jose Arcardio, in a fit of desire, had doomed his family to live in exile. The marriage of Jose Arcardio to his cousin Ursula created many problems in his home town. Ursula refused to sleep with him because of the possibility of deformed children, and this created a self-consciousness within Jose Arcardio. The murder which was a result of this self-consciousness forced Jose Arcardio to leave the city due to his sense of guilt, and he founded Macondo. His founding of Macondo due to his selfish actions resulted in the death of his lineage 100 years later, and in the mystical way of the book, also foretold the many instances of incest which were to follow his and Ursula’s marriage. His decision to marry her despite the warnings of a deformed child were extremely self-centred. Any parent would want their child to grow up healthy and well, and to take an unnecessary risk that could put a child at risk would be seen as a deterrent to any good father. Though his child was not his enemy, he managed to defeat him before he was born by having his family exiled and incestuous. As well, Jose Arcardio’s lack of interest in anything but his monthly obsession caused hurt to Ursula. She wished for nothing more than a sensible husband, but he could not pull away from his fascinations. Instead, Jose Arcardio found himself at a sort of war with her. He found that

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