corruption

• As Hamlet endeavors to discover—and root out—the “rotten” core of Denmark, he grows increasingly disgusted and perturbed by literal

  manifestations of death as well as “deaths” of other kinds: those

  of honor, decency, and indeed the state of Denmark as he once

  knew it.
• Ultimately, Shakespeare suggests a connection

  between external rot and internal, systemic rot, arguing that

  physical corruption portends and even predicts the poisoning

  of spiritual, political, and social affairs.
• The ghost can hardly portend anything good, and as Hamlet and Horatio decide to investigate the apparition and its purpose, they learn that there is indeed a deep corruption at the heart of Denmark’s throne: Claudius, King Hamlet’s brother, murdered him and took his

  throne.
• The political corruption that has overtaken Denmark so disturbs Hamlet that he develops, as the play goes on, an obsession with physical corruption—with rot, decay, and the disgusting nature of death.
• Throughout the play, Hamlet’s fixation with rot and

  corruption—both of the body and of the soul—reflects his (and

  his society’s) conflation of the spoilage of the outside with the

  deterioration of the inside.
• and this obsession reflects his larger anxieties about the deteriorating

  health not just of himself or his family, but of their very nation.
• Hamlet’s continued fixation on the undignified but inescapable process of dying and decay shows that he feels incapable of stopping whatever is festering at the heart of Denmark—and indeed, in the end, a foreign leader named Fortinbras is the only one left to take over the

  Danish throne after Hamlet, Claudius, Laertes, and Gertrude all perish.
• Shakespeare creates a gloomy, poisonous atmosphere

  throughout Hamlet in order to argue that there is a profound

  connection between internal rot and external decay.
• As the state of Denmark suffers political corruption, Shakespeare invokes another kind of corruption—rotting, fouling, and putrefying—to suggest that a corrupt state is just as odious as a decaying corpse.