appearance vs reality

• Hamlet’s characters’ collective desire to make sense of the

  difference between what’s real and what’s not drives them to

  deception, cruelty, and indeed even madness.
• In acting mad, Hamlet succeeds in driving himself mad; in pretending to spurn Hamlet’s affections, Ophelia actually creates a searing rift

  between them; in trying to ignore the fact that her new husband murdered her old one, Gertrude forgets the truth and abandons her moral compass.
• that the desire to determine which aspects of a person’s character or actions are “real” or intentional actually serves to expose the fact that

  there is, perhaps, sometimes no difference between what is real and what is perceived; the identities people perform and the choices they make, even in jest, become their realities.
• Even as Hamlet deceives those around him in an

  attempt to save his own skin, he worries incessantly about the

  guises others adopt to survive at court.
• Hamlet’s constant

  anxiety about being lied to, or merely shown a version of reality

  that runs counter to the truth, is the subject of several length

  monologues and soliloquies—but ultimately, Hamlet’s endless

  inquiries into the morality of constructed appearances lead

  nowhere: at the end of the day, he is complicit in his own worst

  fears.
• Gertrude, meanwhile, appears innocent and ignorant of her husband’s murder—but she may, in reality, be affecting innocence just as Hamlet affects madness as a cover for a darker motive.
• Polonius, too, is guilty of presenting a version of

  himself that runs counter to the truth of who he is: he makes

  claims about himself and offers advice that contradict his own

  actions, such as when he tells Laertes “to thine own self be

  true,” contradicting his own behavior as a fawning courtier loyal

  to the whims of his superiors, or when he claims that “brevity is the soul of wit” before embarking on several lengthy, long-

  winded monologues.
• Ophelia claims to be pure, honest, and undesirous of Hamlet’s sexual or romantic attention—and yet their interactions seem to suggest that she and Hamlet have a long (and lurid) history, making her desperate attempts at purporting her purity all the more pathetic when seen through Hamlet’s eyes.
• All of these characters become the things they once merely

  pretended to be—and the line between appearance and reality

  grows blurrier and blurrier as the play progresses.
• As Shakespeare shows how fine the line between

  appearance and reality really is, he transforms the play into a

  cautionary tale about the dangers of adopting behaviors, traits,

  and ways of moving through the world that obscure or corrupt

  the truth of who one really is.