Both Claudius and Hamlet are very clever, intelligent, charming, and skilled manipulators. What separates the two into villain and protagonist are their motivations and beliefs. Throughout the play, it is a back-and-forth battle between Claudius and Hamlet as they struggle to achieve their own causes. In this essay I will show how, despite failing to eliminate Hamlet as planned, he is still a master manipulator and puppet master who gracefully orchestrates the end.
Before we delve into the specifics of how Claudius pulls this all off, it is important to understand the types of behavior that are manipulative at a basic level, manipulation in its simplest form. From there we can take a look at his actions in the book and see these manipulation tactics performed constantly.
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The first and most common manipulation tactic is filtering. One of the most simple ways to manipulate someone is to filter the information you give them. Of course, everything we say is filtered to some degree. Our everyday filter is almost a subconscious one, but there comes a point where our filtering goes from a normal conversational skill to a deceptive tactic; leaving out bits and pieces to obscure the severity of a situation might agitate someone and cause them to act on misinformation, or it might make them react calmly opposed to if they knew the full story. It is a simple tactic, but a very powerful one.
The second manipulation tactic is personalization, or shifting the perspective from the victim’s to the oppressor’s. It is possible and common for a manipulator to twist the situation and words of the victim to make the situation about themself when the problem is the manipulator's own fault. By making the issue the manipulator's own as well, or relating the problem back to themself, they make their actions seem justified and evoke sympathy from others.
The third manipulation tactic relates to the second one, and it is gaslighting. Gaslighting is when someone denies a reality to make someone doubt their own perception and memory of the situation. This can involve bombarding someone with questions, but it doesn't have to. Essentially it is manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity.
In general, the more you know about someone, the easier it will be to manipulate them. Knowing things such as a person's fears, or desires will make you very powerful, and the fact that Claudius essentially oversees the court and everyone in it, allows him to smoothly maneuver in his plan.
There are multiple instances of manipulation throughout Hamlet, obviously, and each is a combination of these or even other manipulation tactics. Claudius’ manipulation is a very complex and methodical one, and you will see how everyone around him is constantly being manipulated so everything goes just his way.
We can first observe one of the tactics that Claudius uses to manipulate those around him, which is telling them what to think about what troubles they may be facing. By telling them how to feel in every situation, without thinking too much about it everyone will begin to believe his side of the story if he becomes more involved in the situation; the more involved he becomes in the situation, the more reliable of an informational source he will become, he will come off as more trustworthy, even.
He tells Hamlet things like “[you] must know your father lost a father, That … lost
his.”(1.2.87-89), which essentially says that what he is experiencing is nothing special or new and that many other people have lost their father before him; ergo “’Tis unmanly grief.”(1.2.94).
Claudius continues to berate Hamlet about how to feel about his father’s death and
insists he should celebrate his father’s death because he is in a better place now.
This first instance is a perfect example of gaslighting as well as personalization.
Related to this incident is another that comes later, when Claudius confronts
Laertes after Polonius’ death. Everyone in Hamlet is a pawn in Claudius’ plan, and he has different plans for Laertes in it. Hamlet is a force to be reckoned with, being fueled by revenge, so, to counter this, Claudius takes advantage of Laertes’ desire to avenge his father and pits him against Hamlet.
Laertes’ rage is initially towards Claudius because he thinks Claudius is trying to cover up Polonius’ death after he secretly buries his body. This is until Claudius does some damage control and helps direct his rage onto Hamlet. Claudius reveals that he believes Hamlet needs to be punished for his actions, but is unable to due to the fact that everyone in the court loves him. While he shames Hamlet for having unmanly grief and not being able to get over it, he encourages Laertes to feel his anger and avenge his father as a good son would. Claudius decides for Laertes how he should feel about his father’s death and motivates him, saying time is of the essence, and spurs him on to avenge his father because it would benefit Claudius.
Claudius begins by interrogating Laertes and makes it seem like he doubts that Laertes is feeling grief over his father, asking “Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart?” (4.7.122-124) when he displays his passion and emotion, then Claudius warns “Time qualifies the spark and fire of it” (4.7.129) which sends Laertes into worry and he feels the need to act on his rage immediately.
Claudius now has Laertes to use to carry out his plan and get rid of Hamlet.
This instance of manipulation relates to the next instance and how Claudius chooses his words differently for everyone he talks to in order to advance his cause.
In another instance, we see not an explicit example of him being manipulative, but just the opposite, taking into account the way he speaks with certain people. This combined with their relationship to him reveals whether or not he is being truly manipulative. It’s possible that he simply speaks in a certain way to everyone, but this is not the case when we look further into it.
Claudius and Polonius are friendly, more than a friendship on a surface level as he would typically have. This is mainly because Claudius has something to get from his relationship with Polonius. Claudius and Polonius have similar motives which relate to silencing and understanding Hamlet’s behavior. Their motivations are for slightly different reasons but nonetheless, this allows Claudius to be frank with Polonius more so than other members of the court to an extent. Polonius feels similarly to Claudius about Hamlet.; Everyone else in the court views Hamlet in a good light and would react badly if Claudius outright expressed his feelings about him. After all, he needs to be clear and frank in order to communicate properly and get certain information out of Polonius.
As we see above Claudius speaks in a certain way to almost everyone. This way entails taking control of the conversation and telling the person whom he is talking to what to think and feel about the topic at hand. This manipulative way of interacting Claudius uses in most cases is not found when he is talking with Polonius. To Claudius, Polonius is a perfect and loyal advisor, and a man “faithful and honorable.” (2.2.128), so he rarely questions the information Polonius has to bring to the table.
We can see a perfect example of his change in behavior in Act 2, Scene 2. Right from the start of the scene, he is talking with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and we can observe how he takes control of the conversation from the start. In a page, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern leave and Polonius enters, and Claudius instantly goes from having half a page's worth of lines at a time to one-liners. For once he lets someone have a word in and he shows no attempt to hide any information or correct what Polonius is saying.
In our last instance, we can see on the surface that Claudius and Gertrude are in love. It seems as if Claudius has her best interests in mind and cares for her, but taking into consideration the previous instances and ways he uses those around him, it’s not farfetched to assume he also has Gertrude wrapped around his finger as well.
Claudius was jealous of his brother, his status, his freedoms, his life, and his wife, and he has already obtained all of that through unruly means which sets the relationship between Claudius and Gertrude off to a bad start.
Claudius’ goal is to get rid of Hamlet and he knows that in general, Hamlet thinks highly of his mother. Even while disgusted by the way she has been behaving, there is still a strong mother-son bond. On the other hand, Claudius knows that Gertrude also cares a lot for Hamlet, and he uses the motherly feelings she has to his advantage. This aspect allows him to have a lot of control over her actions because she would almost always comply with what he says for Hamlet’s sake. An example of this is he is able to manipulate Gertrude to believe that he loves Hamlet, and gets her to go along with his plan to ship Hamlet off to England under the guise it’s because he wants the best for Hamlet and for him to be safe.
From these observations, we can see Claudius is indeed a very effective and skilled manipulator. He lived a life of which manipulation was an integral part. Claudius repeatedly demonstrates some of the top manipulation tactics, such as filtering, personalization, and gaslighting among others, and a close analysis of who he manipulates and how reveals a lot about him as a person and what he values. The fact that he is able to live his life like this without the burden of his past actions affecting his psyche makes him also an excellent administrator. He has a goal and the knowledge of how to achieve that goal, and with no barriers to stop his pursuit, he would have been truly unstoppable, if not for Hamlet reminding him of his crimes. Although in the end, he died due to his own misstep, he very well could have gotten his way, had he planned more carefully. He technically achieved his goal to eliminate Hamlet, but dying was not part of that plan.
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