The Importance of Claudius' Guilt in Hamlet In the first three acts of the play Hamlet, King Claudius goes through a subtle, but definite change of character. Claudius' role in the opera begins as the new king of Denmark. The former king, King Hamlet, was poisoned by his brother Claudius, while he was sleeping. Claudius, however, let everyone know that the king had died from a snake bite in the garden, and therefore no one knew about the murder that had just occurred making his murder the perfect crime. The only problem Claudio faces now is his conscience. After Claudius commits the act of killing King Hamlet, he almost immediately marries Hamlet's wife, Queen Gertrude. Claudius also gets a new son, his former nephew Hamlet, son of King Hamlet. Young Hamlet is very unhappy with his mother's hasty marriage of Claudius and is angry at this incest. Hamlet feels a deep attraction for his mother that goes beyond the traditional mother-son relationship. At this point in the play, Hamlet doesn't know that Claudius killed his father, but he still hates him. Claudius is not a bad king, as evidenced by his handling of the situation between Young Fortinbras and Denmark, but he is not very popular among the people and has revived the odious custom of firing cannons every time the king drinks . Claudio's conscience is non-existent here. After the ghost of the late King Hamlet tells Hamlet to avenge his murder, Hamlet has a reason to truly hate Claudius. From this point on in the play, there is definitely friction between the two. When Claudius offers Hamlet the throne after his death, Hamlet behaves apathetically as if... center of the card... Works cited and consulted: Boklund, Gunnar. "Hamlet." Essays on Shakespeare. Ed. Gerald Chapmann. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Lectures and notes on Shakspere and other English poets. London: George Bell and Sons, 1904. p. 342-368. http://ds.dial.pipex.com/thomas_larque/ham1-col.htmKnight, 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. page.Mack, Maynard. "Hamlet's World." Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Readings on Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996.Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nn.