Betrayal Theme In Hamlet

There are few staples of human nature like the betrayal that can be found through the act of cheating or in much more dire situations, murder. Throughout Shakespeare’s longest running play, Hamlet, the betrayal that is faced is one that is circumstantial, in that it reveals the pride, jealousy and selfishness that the characters possess that are paralleled with those found in the bible. Claudius, the brother to the king, has committed fratricide and treason of the highest order, “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, A brother's murther!” (Shakespeare, III. 319-320). Essentially, the allusion: “It hath the primal eldest curst upon’t (Shakespeare, III. 320), is alluding to the actions that were taking against Cain and the consequences that Claudius will face as having committed such a heinous crime to his …show more content…
I found this theme to have been relevant because both Cain and Claudius feel as though they have been robbed of what they believe their position should’ve been, they committed revenge in order to get the justice that they felt they should have had in the first place, “Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.”(New International Version, Gen. 4.8). The allusion to Cain has increased my understanding of Claudius and the play because they have allowed me to see the ambitions that Claudius had when he poisoned his brother and the humanity that he displays rarely as being a deterrence from the countenance that he employs in order to aid his case so that all that would be just in his world once again “Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe, Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature That we with wisest sorrow think on him Together with remembrance of ourselves.”(Shakespeare,