Claudius, King Hamlets brother, Young Hamlets Uncle and Gertrudes new husband. A man that some people would find completely and most definitely evily cruel villain, and others would find him an admirable hero. So many things in our lives, practically everything that we find either to be good or bad comes from how we are raised or where In the world we live, whether or not somebody would find him to be a villain or not would totally be determined from everything in our lives that influenced them. Growing up in Canada, our home and native land, free of war and disease have found that, us as a country have it pretty good. We have our charter of rights and freedoms, and a pretty firm legal system. As a country we have decided that it is not considered ok for the people to carry guns or swords, and then use them to kill someone. Looking back at Hamlet, it seems that murdering someone was a past time, yes people were affected, however how often death came in the play, it seemed as if no one cared, no authorities were called. Coming back to Canada, if someone was murdered, the police would be called right away, and things would be done. Living in Canada, as Canadian citizens looking at the war that is going on in Iraq, there are many things that we hear about that we do not agree with, giving children guns, suicide bombing. However we only look at that from our Canadian standards, over there they call there selves freedom fighters, and to them what they are doing is completely all right. What the Americans are doing is sending people over and they are killing there people however they do not sacrifice there selves, because they are greedy. Looking back in history at people like Hitler. What did he do He killed millions of Jewish people, however he did not do it himself, he had practically most of Germany under his control. What he said what he did, most Canadians did not agree with, nor did most of the world. However he was so good at what he did he convinced Germany that it was perfectly all right. That Jewish people where evil. What Claudius did was killed his brother, the king. However how are we certain that Claudius was not like Canada, see the things that King Hamlet was doing from a second party, how are we certain that King Hamlet had his kingdom hypnotised like Hitler had the Germans? Some people would argue that Claudius risked his self getting caught for attempted murder on the king, perhaps Claudius knew something or seen something that the king has done that he did not agree with as a second party. Perhaps Claudius seen the king beating his wife, Gertrude the women whom Claudius is in love with. However Claudius could just be a greedy jerk whom just wanted to be the center of attention, to be the king. No one knows, all that we know as the readers is what Shakespeare wrote, what he told us. Lets go back in time a bit more, when the Bible was wrote. Today Millions of people believe what it says and stands for, word for word. Although there are people who do not believe in it at all. We give the Bible to someone who believes and tell them what they think it means and what each character means to them, and what they stand for, there version would be much different then that of someone who does not believe. Hamlet and many other stories in the world are the same way, some people were brought up one way to think and others another way. People are like books. Everyone is different and have theyre own cover, and on the back of the book is a short little paragraph, that is what we see of the person, that little paragraph, however behind the cover is a story, a story that we do not know. Do you know my story? Do you even know your parents story. There is so much that happens in our life as people, so many details. It is impossible to understand them or even read them. If we were to write down everything we did or said in a day, it would take someone a day to read it, if we wrote everything we did in a year, all the details, it would take a year to read. Hamlet took us only a few weeks to read, and I am sure that someone could read it in a few hours. However to sit down and decide whether or not what Claudius has done made him a good person or a bad person, that is illogical I have no idea how his life has been or even what was going threw his mind when he killed his brother, if I could think like everyone in the world thinks at the same time, I could tell you whether or not I think he is a hero or a villain, but I cant nor can you, so giving this as a topic is completely ridiculous, and unreasonable. Why ask someone to prove something when all we have to prove is a few hundred pages of information, Claudius even though he is a fictional character he still has a story a story that I dont know, so what you want me to do is judge a book by its cover, and all my life I have been told not to do that.

• published: 18 Nov 2008
• views: 881