Hamlet FOA Script:

So I will be discussing Hamlet and his hypocrisy and how that makes him a bad leader
and a bad character in general. So Hamlet is supposed to be the Prince of Denmark
and he is next to the throne after King Claudius.
1) At the very beginning of the play, in Act 1 Scene 2, Hamlet expresses his hatred
for deception and the fake people in Kings court. In this line, Hamlet says:
Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed 'seem,'

For they are actions that a man might play:

But I have that within which passes show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
So early on during the play he says he values the inner truth in everyone rather
than their outward appearances. In this conversation, Hamlet implies that
everyone including the King and Gertrude are pretending to be mourning
because the court seem very optimistic and well-dressed.
But after he finds out about his uncles act of treason. He feigns madness, he
deceives everyone into believing that he has gone mad but in reality he is just
pretending. We know this because he says to Horatio that he will put an antic
disposition on.
He hides under a facade of insanity to get his way through manipulation and
deceit, which he criticized earlier in the play.
2) Another scenario where Hamlet shows his hypocrisy is when he promises
himself that he will not hurt Gertrude and will only speak daggers not use them.
He says:
O heart, lose not thy nature, let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her but use none.
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.

So he wants to talk to Gertrude and let her know of her sins. He says my tongue and
soul in this be hypocrites, this shows that Hamlet wanted Gertrude to know what was
going on in his mind. He hides his thoughts. The last line also implies that if it wasnt for
the ghost, Hamlet might have killed his mother too. In this scene, Hamlet manipulates
Gertrude into feeling guilty for Claudius actions.

After this Hamlet threatens to kill Gertrude by saying:

No, in despite of sense and secrecy,

Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.
He uses heavy sarcasm here to warn Gertrude to go tell Claudius about their
conversation and get herself killed. He uses imagery while he says let the birds fly as
in let the secret out.
Hamlet ensures that the Queen will not tell on him by manipulating her and making her
believe that she will be killed. So he is willing to use manipulate his OWN MOTHER.
---------------------3) Lastly Hamlet blames women for being weak but in reality he is also very weak.
He says:
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on. And yet, within a month
(Let me not think on 't; frailty, thy name is woman!)
Instead of calling his mother weak for not being strong after the kings death, he calls all
women weak. But shortly after, he gives the To be or not to be soliloquy and shows that
he is considering killing himself because he is overtaken by the confusion and sadness
he has to face. He shows weakness throughout many instances in the play.

In one of his soliloquies he says:

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,

That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion

He feels so weak that he calls himself a drab and scullion which are demeaning words
to refer to. While blaming women for being weak, he himself shows weakness in many
scenarios.
When Hamlet has the upperhand earlier in the play, he likes to think of himself as a very
moral being, but after as he tries to murder Claudius, he realizes the immorality and the
underlying hypocrisy in his actions.
For being a renaissance humanist man in a society that appreciates medieval sense of
honor and chivalry, Hamlet has a few vices and the lack of deus ex machina, leads to
his downfall. And this is a very important part of a tragedy and what makes Hamlet a
tragic hero where god doesnt come down and solve everyones problems.

DONALD TRUMP and his hypocrisy. (contemporary)