preview

Loyalty Vs. Betrayal In Shakespeare's Hamlet

Decent Essays

The word love is used many times throughout Hamlet. It is used to show respect to one one person to another. It was used to express feelings from one character to another. But, the word “love” adds emphasis to the theme of loyalty vs. betrayal in the play. Using the word “love” was to show your loyalty to one another. Horatio questions, “As needful in our love, fitting our duty(1.1.172)?” Horatio and the guards just saw the ghost of old King Hamlet and to remain their loyalty and Horatio’s friendship towards prince Hamlet that they should inform him of what they saw. Claudius even uses the word love to talk about Hamlet’s loyalty to his mother and him when he suggests, “Why ‘tis a loving and a fair reply, be as ourself in Denmark.”(1.2.121). Hamlet agrees to stay home because his mother commands him. This shows his …show more content…

But still, Hamlet feels betrayed by his mother greatly due to the fact that she married so close to her previous husband's death, stealing the throne from the rightful heir Hamlet. Later, he shows great loyalty to his father’s ghost when he says, “As mediation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge.” (1,5,30). Hamlet is saying that he will get his revenge faster than people fall in love. That shows how devoted he is to his father to go avenge his death by killing Claudius later on in the play for betraying his brother. At the end of the play, Hamlet express his loyalty to Ophelia when he says, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could...quantity of love make up my some.”(5.1.255-257). Even though Hamlet told her he had no love for her to attempt to get her out of the crossfire, it

Get Access