The Importance Of The Truth In Shakespeare's Hamlet

To create a persona or to stay sane, what a difficult decision! In Hamlet, there are many themes that go back to telling the truth. The two main ones being hiding and twisting the truth as well as creating a persona to avoid suspicions. During the play, many characters take on the challenge and try to save their face and hide from the truth. By changing the roles that they play, the audience becomes anxious to find out what will happen next. It is an important part of the play, because it keeps the plot mysterious and suspenseful. Changing oneself to conceal and twist the truth is a powerful theme in Hamlet.

The attempt to taking on an alter ego is a major theme with the characters in this play. Everyone tries to appear innocent, but as a …show more content…
The personas created the chaos that led to their deaths and it created a problems for those left to clean it up. Each alter ego created also had a chain reaction with all the other characters that led to their deaths as well. For example, the character that Claudius created severely affected Hamlet. The results being him pretending to go insane, grieving his father's death, and taking vengeance. The other problem with the alter egos created would be that in the end the secrets became exposed. The extra effort and mental illnesses were for nothing, but time. Although being able to live longer is good, it would have made more sense for Claudius to come clean. Most of the problems would have been solved if he did.

Of the characters, Hamlet and Claudius kept the most secrets. Horatio is the only character that did not create a full alter ego, because he played the voice of reason to Hamlet. He also knew most of the secrets and that is part of the reason why he lived through the entire play. The role he plays is important in the play. He is one of the few characters that remains neutral in the unspoken battle between Hamlet and Claudius. He did not go out of his way to try and hide his own secrets as much since he was holding so many for …show more content…
To understand it completely, they need to look deeper into character's thought processes. Past the facades, there is a completely different world filled with truths and chaos. The concept of creating a persona shows how lies can change and destroy a person. Everyone tries to conceal the bad parts of their pasts. This play shows how failing to conceal it will lead to difficult consequences. Though it is a work of fiction based on a legend, many can learn from the lies and damage of corrupting oneself. The main purpose of the play seems to not be about the plot or characters, but of how to relate it to real