True Appearance In William Shakespeare's Hamlet

William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet includes many themes and motifs but one of the major motifs that occurs is appearance of a character contrasted with the characters true nature. Many characters put on appearances to deceive others into believing their lies and hide their true motives. The main characters in the play that hide their true appearance are Hamlet, Claudius and Polonius. Hamlet hides behind his antic disposition to try and reveal if King Claudius is guilty of murdering the previous king, Hamlet’s father. While putting on this act Hamlet fools many characters into believing he is mad. The first site of Hamlets madness is his encounter with Ophelia. Hamlet enters her room improperly dressed and “He took [her] by the wrist and held [her] hard.” (2.1.87) while doing this he stares at Ophelia for a while and then slowly backs out of the room. This made Ophelia realize Hamlet was crazy and she immediately told her father. Hamlet put on this antic disposition to find out if Claudius killed
He tells Ophelia that Hamlet doesn’t actually love her which can be seen as his way of looking out for her and trying to make sure she isn’t hurt by Hamlet. However within the context of what he says to her he makes Ophelia seem unintelligent for believing that someone of high social status could ever love her. Later when Ophelia comes to Polonius about Hamlets encounter with her in her sewing closet, Polonius claims that she made him mad due to her rejection of him and blames her for the fact that he is insane now. When in reality Polonius told Ophelia she wasn’t allowed to see Hamlet anymore. Polonius also states that by continuing the flirtation between Ophelia and Hamlet, “[Ophelia will] tender [him] a fool” (1.3.109) meaning she will seem foolish which will reflect poorly on Polonius so in reality he is only trying to protect his image and not caring about what is best for his