Appearance vs. Reality These two concepts are defining how the characters really are in this play.

Almost every character has a mask in order to achieve their purposes. Hamlet, King Claudius, Polonius, Rosencrantz, Guilenstern and even the queen have Its true that every character use these masks in order to do good or bad things. The main character Hamlet decides to wear a mask of insanity. He does that because this was the only way that he could make his father killer to confess .His plan works because everybody was sure that the death of his father and the marriage of his mother with his uncle brought him into a crazy situation. Although, another reason for his apparently insanity was the love that he felt for Ophelia. She rejects his love on his fathers advice and in this way hamlet gets a new reason for getting insane. Hamlet uses this trick because he knew that no one can suspect a poor insane person to plot such a plan. In this way he was able to put in scene that play which story was really close to what happened between his father and his uncle and realized that his fathers ghost told him the truth. Kings Claudius is another character that hides his real intentions under a mask. He shows himself really affected by his brothers death even though he was the killer. In fact he always wanted his brothers crown and his kingdom and he was able to kill for that. We can see the difference between appearance and reality in the moment when he finds out about Hamlets madness. In appearance he looks very concerned about this issue but in fact all that he wanted was to push hamlet away from the kingdom. Keeping him insane he assured himself that Hamlet wont find out the truth about his fathers death. He is afraid of what Hamlet would be able to do if he would know the truth. Thats why he is pretty content when Polonius assures him that Hamlet is actually sick.

Polonius is another controversial character. He has always multiple faces. He pretends to be loyal to the kingdom while he actually cares only about his own life and his own good. Besides from spying Hamlet and make his own daughter believes that Hamlet doesnt love her, he cant trust even his own son. In appearance he looks pretty glad about his leaving and he shows him that he trusts him, but in fact he puts someone to spy him. The difference between appearance and reality is presented when Rosencrantz and Guilenstern came up in the play. In appearance they show themselves concerned about Hamlets wealth but reality they do that only because Claudius asked them to. The same thing we can notice on hamlets mother. When his father was alive she showed herself very kind and she always showed love to his husband but after his death she gets married with his brother.

Madness

This is one of the main themes of the play. Its Hamlet madness, the main character. He uses it as a mask in order to find out who killed his father and to make the killer to confess his guilt.

The play within a play The play within a play is that moment from the third act, scene number two when Hamlet, helped by some players, puts on stage the scene of his fathers death. He hopes that when Claudius will see the events he will confess his crime. He wants to be sure that the ghost that he saw told him the truth. Hamlet use an Italian play that he saw it a couple of years ago.