Betrayal & the Pitfalls of Human Desire

...

Still others fall victim to this plot of one manipulative act of betrayal after the next. Perhaps the most challenging of all these instances are those of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Upon being summoned by the king, the two young lads travel to Denmark to be reunited with Hamlet, but the reason for their visit is suspect, a fact that Hamlet quickly catches on to. He knows that his old school buddies “were sent for [by]…the good king and queen” to understand why he “lost all [his] mirth” (Shakespeare 1395). Not being able to tell a lie they confess. Here Hamlet has every right to be angry and refuse to entertain his friends for fear of his secret being exposed. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are definitely violating their good will, but it is questionable whether they are truly to blame. As two men subject to the authority of the king, they could not have easily disobeyed his order to spy on Hamlet. They certainly could have chosen to be dishonest with the king and try to protect their friend, however, Hamlet keeps them in the dark. Shakespeare seems to pose a question to the audience of the validity of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s betrayal of Hamlet. Was it truly an act of disloyalty to Hamlet or rather a byproduct of loyalty and obedience to the authority of the king’s rule? Hamlet certainly made his opinion known after hatching a plan to have his former friends unknowingly deliver their own execution letter to the king of England. Hamlet betrays those who betrayed him. Once more, the playwright shows another level of betrayal as an outpouring of man’s desire for power, control, honor, and self-perseverations. Betrayal is always the consequence of overt selfishness. The brute, male ego and the rage that ensues with it leads men to forsake noble ideas of loyalty, honesty, and faithfulness all in the name of honor.

All throughout the play, William Shakespeare uses various acts of betrayal to build up to an overarching idea and meaning of the work as a whole. This idea is explored toward the end of Act IV as Fortinbras, a foil of Hamlet, is preparing to go and fight for a tiny piece of land not even worth the blood and lives that will be lost to claim it. Hamlet reflects, “witness this army of such mass and charge, led…with divine ambition…to all that fortune, death, and danger dare, even for an eggshell” (Shakespeare 1429.) An “eggshell”, a thing worthless and discarded, thousands of men are willing to die for. This idea baffles Hamlet and indeed baffles Shakespeare. His message is that when men are so blind by enacting revenge, conquering rival kings, overthrowing powerful leaders in order to gain rule, and yes, even betraying the people whom they love most for selfish gain, the casualties are not just one-fold. They are many. Men should instead aspire to be loyal, honest, and trustworthy. That is the high road Horatio took.

Hamlet’s closest and most trusted friend Horatio was the only character in Shakespeare’s play that did not betray the trust of those he was in relationship with. In this manner he became a foil for all of the less virtuous characters in the play and a representation of the type of man Shakespeare wants his audience to admire. He is faithful to Hamlet through and through, even to the point of death. It was out his faithfulness that he avoided death after Hamlet begged him to “absent thee from felicity awhile, and…draw [his] breath in pain, to tell [Hamlet’s] story” (Shakespeare 1457). Being a man of honor, he agrees to fulfill his friend’s request and accepted that mission as his new purpose in life. Here Shakespeare subliminally drive home the message that those who chose faithfulness over betrayal are the only ones who benefit from lives of merit and honor. Everyone else just ends up, well, dead.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet”. The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. Shorter 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 1363-1458. Print.