Examples Of False Faces In Hamlet

False Faces in “Hamlet”
The use of false faces is readily apparent in literature. The play opens with an elaborate mask, Hamlet’s late father. The new King, formerly Hamlet’s uncle, turns out to be his worst enemy. Hamlet wears his own mask of pretense before his enemies. Gertrude, the mother, paints on a queenly face, admires her outward appearance, and tells herself that her actions are not wrong. Lastly, Ophelia, dutiful daughter to Polonius, cooperates with him and the King in an act to betray Hamlet. Shakespeare creates false faces in one of his most famous plays, “Hamlet.”
Opening the play with a masked identity of its own, the late King, Hamlet’s father, appears as a ghostly figure. This alone gives the audience a sense of false facing because the King is thought of to be dead. Not only does he appear at the beginning of the play in the presence of Horatio, Barnardo, and Marcellus, but two more times throughout the plot to his son Hamlet. To further confirm that the ghost was false facing the image of the dead King, Horatio remarks that it is wearing the same armor the King wore when fighting Norway. As the three men draw their swords in fear, they request that Horatio, the scholar, address the ghost.
What art thou that
As theater progressed, they were worn to produce an alternate identity. Shakespeare took this theory and used it in his own works of art. In this play, the protagonist must awaken to the fact that thing are not always what they seem. Beneath the surface, he comes to realize that most of the people in his life are wearing inner masks. The author made it so that Hamlet slowly, but surely, uncovered every face that was hidden so that the truth may come to the light. Shakespeare creates false faces in “Hamlet” to emphasize that what starts as a mousetrap will soon snap upon us if we don’t reveal the