King Claudius within Hamlet Essay -- Shakespeare Hamlet Essays

King Claudius within Hamlet  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   William Shakespeare produced in Hamlet a pair of quite noble characters: One is the protagonist and the other, the antagonist. King Claudius is a close second to the hero in many ways, even superior to him in some. This essay will consider the truly fantastic creation of the character of King Claudius.    Salvador de Madariaga in â€Å"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern† discusses Claudius’ relationship with the two emissaries and former friends of Hamlet, who were escorting the prince to his execution in England:    The two young men receive from the King a commission which, whatever the King’s secret intentions may be, is honorable. Hamlet, the King in fact tells them, is not what he was. The cause of the change "I cannot dream of."    Therefore, I beg you so by your companies    To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather So much as from occasion you may glean Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus That opened lies within our remedy (n. pag.).    Like everyone else in the kingdom of Denmark, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are deceived by the king – and it costs them their lives. Just what sort of character do we find in the person of Claudius? Does the following critic misinterpret him? G. Wilson Knight in "The Embassy of Death" interprets him:    Claudius, as he appears in the play, is not a criminal. He is - strange as it may seem - a good and gentle king, enmeshed by the chain of causality linking him with his crime. And this chain he might, perhaps, have broken except for Hamlet, and all would have been well. (n. pag.)    The drama opens after Hamlet has just returned from Wittenberg, England, upon hearing the news of his fa... ..., Helena (Lady Martin). On Some of Shakespeare's Female Characters. 6th ed. London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1899.    Knight, G. Wilson. "The Embassy of Death." The Wheel of Fire. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1954. p. 38-39. http://server1.hypermart.net/hamlet/wheefire.html N. pag.    Mack, Maynard. â€Å"The World of Hamlet.† Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996.    Madariaga, Salvador de. â€Å"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.† â€Å"On Hamlet.† 2nd ed. London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1964. p.14-16. http://www.freehomepages.com/hamlet/other/essayson.htm#demag-ess N. pag.    Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.