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Deception In Shakespeare's Hamlet

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The Tragedy of Hamlet was Shakespeare’s longest and most popular play. One of the major themes throughout the play was the use of deceit or indirection to find out the truth. This was prevalent throughout the play and almost all of the characters succumbed to using deception and lies to find out the truth. None of the characters trusted anything they heard or saw so there was a lot of distrust between them. Due to the amount of deception and distrust going on in the play, it drove the characters to become very sneaky and drove them to do crazy things. The Tragedy of Hamlet is truly a well known play and it is very exciting and intriguing. Many modern day movies have used the plot of Hamlet because it is gripping for viewers to watch. …show more content…
Elizabeth stated that “Although Hamlet, like Polonius and Claudius, believes that surveillance can help him ‘find where truth is hid’, he is enraged when others attempt to get at the truth behind is own actions”. This furthers my examples of the deception in Hamlet. The characters in Hamlet believe they have to spy on people and be sneaky about the ways they go about finding out the actual truth. Even though Hamlet uses deceit with other people, he gets angered when the other characters try to do the same to him. Another thing Elizabeth pointed out was that Hamlet was under constant surveillance from the start of the play. So this also helps to prove my point because nobody trusted Hamlet’s actions or anything he did, so they constantly distrusted him and had him under surveillance to find out the truth and what he was up to. Therefore it goes to show that none of the characters could trust anyone or anything, as they consistently had Hamlet under …show more content…
It was a major theme in the play as none of the characters were able to trust one another. They always found out the truth by using indirect and deceit like Polonius did with Laertes and Hamlet did with Claudius. The play was very long and had a lot going on but that’s what kept it interesting. People, including myself, find lying and using deception very captivating. “Pretty Little Liars” and “Scandal” are both highly popular television series because there is much deceit and distrust going on. These things keep viewers wanting more and always wanting to find out the truth so it is so gripping and

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