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Fortinbras's Deceit In Hamlet By William Shakespeare

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Fortinbras’s Deceit Hamlet is well known by many as being one of the best tragedies in English literature. Additionally, there is a smaller point throughout the whole play that focuses on Fortinbras and his desire for war. Fortinbras is the son of Fortinbras the former ruler of Norway. However, before the events of Hamlet, Fortinbras Sr. was killed by King Hamlet. Early on in the story Fortinbras Jr. was angry with Denmark for the death of his father and was planning an attack to get back the land that his father had lost to the recently deceased King Hamlet. Fortinbras states that he will not attack Denmark, but later on in the story you can piece together that Fortinbras intended to take over Denmark on his return from Poland no matter what …show more content…
Hamlet is soon greeted by a captain in Fortinbras’ army. Hamlet questions the captain as to who’s army it is and why it is there to which the captain replies that it is Fortinbras’. As their conversation continues Hamlet asks why Fortinbras is attacking Poland. The captain states that Fortinbras intends to claim a small piece of land in Poland that hold no great value, however they only intend to capture it just for the name alone. You can imply from this that Fortinbras only wants to claim the land just to say he has it. What is to stop him for doing the same to Norway? As stated above the Captain says that there is no value to the land whatsoever, but Poland will still have troops there to defend …show more content…
However, being the king of Norway he probably wasn’t in any serious trouble with being thrown in jail. So why would he change his tone toward attacking Denmark? One possibility is that he wanted to hide the fact that he intended on taking Denmark and take them by surprise. After Fortinbras’ conquest of part of Poland he probably left some soldiers there to defend it. With soldiers in Poland, Fortinbras was in perfect position to attack Denmark from both the North and South East if it came to it. Thanks to Hamlet, however; this didn’t need to

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