When Hamlet's father orders him to kill Claudius, Hamlet's reaction is one of questioning and disbelief. Although he is deeply concerned about his father's murder and wishes to discover the killer, he harbors suspicions about the truth behind the ghost's strident accusation against his uncle Claudius. Thus, Hamlet decides to stage a play: a trap to unmask the king's potentially tainted conscience. Without examining the results of this scheme, its basic structure is the one used by almost all the characters in the play. They don't immediately address the perpetrator; rather, the characters set small, contained traps and patiently wait for the results. These traps are not always terrible, as seen in Polonius' plan to discover Hamlet's intentions in loving Ophelia. In a broader scope, the play as a whole is a deeply intertwined and complex web of traps and plots, from which only Horace manages to escape at the end of the play. As a commentary on human behavior, Shakespeare includes this theme to indicate that there is always a victor and a vanquished, or in Polonius' terms, a spring and a woodcock. However, ironically, the winner is not always the spy and the loser is not always the culprit. As a result, the line between hero and villain does not remain consistent throughout the play. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Hamlet's purpose for the play is obvious: he calls it "The Mousetrap." If he lacked evidence before, or if he feared that his personal feelings might cloud his judgment, the king's performance during "The Mousetrap" could well have been the key to Hamlet's later actions. The trap is installed in the traditional way. There is a springe (Hamlet) and a woodcock (Claudio) from the beginning, and the results will be explicit: either the king reacts and Hamlet wins it is his private game of cat and mouse or the king does not react and Hamlet faces even more insecurity compared to before the show. Ultimately, the play solves the problem: “Give me some light. Go” (3.2.275). For those familiar with the situation, Claudio's reaction confirms every suspicion. As Hamlet so eloquently observed, “Thing, afraid of false fire” (3.2.272). Indeed, Claudio is trapped by his own actions. No real charges have been brought, at least not directly. But the fact that he was so disturbed by what he saw could only mean that, as Hamlet had hoped, he had understood the subtle message sent. For Claudio it was equivalent to someone reporting him, unmasking him to the world as the murderer he is. When the comedy overwhelms him, Claudio demands the light. The meaning of "light" has a unique meaning for Claudius, for those close to him, and for Hamlet. For Hamlet it is the decisive test and the final measure of escape of a desperate man. For Claudius' court it is a simple command to receive the light. And for Claudio it is a request for air, a way out of the trap he had unknowingly fallen into when he sat down in the theater. Reviewing only the scene from “The Mousetrap”, Hamlet is the hero in the eyes of the reader. He has suspicions about his corrupt uncle and they are confirmed by Claudio's reaction to the sight. He has a clear path to expose his uncle as the killer and adequate grounds on which to seek deadly revenge. In contrast, Claudius is the obvious villain, having now killed Hamlet's father, married his mother, and essentially revealed his conscience to Hamlet. Thus, “The Mousetrap” establishes lucid definitions for both the hero and the villain. However, let's consider a second spy scene that takes place immediately after the show. Claudiohe is praying in a confessional, acknowledging his mistakes to God. Hamlet enters the room to listen to Claudius pray and secretly slips into the cabin adjacent to the king's for a closer view. After spying on Claudius for a few minutes, Hamlet draws his dagger and mentally prepares to finish off the king. However, he thinks twice, lowers his sword and secretly escapes from the chapel. Once again, in this scene there are two distinct outcomes: Hamlet kills Claudius and follows his father's orders or he hesitates, oppressed by his conscience and his taste for the dramatic. He does the latter, fearing that killing Claudius in a moment of absolution would bring justice to Claudius that Hamlet's father never received at the moment of his death. In a short period of time, the reader's opinion of Hamlet changes dramatically from laudatory to slightly disappointed. If Hamlet had killed Claudius in the church, he would have been the hero. Instead his actions are devious and shady, even dishonorable. As a spy, according to the definitions established by the “Mousetrap” scene, Hamlet is expected, even hoped, to emerge with a better position against his uncle. However, Claudius' prayer casts him in a more positive light, while Hamlet's escape casts an evil shadow. By blurring this line between hero and villain, Shakespeare projects the moral uncertainty experienced by Hamlet onto his audience, who are left to decide for themselves. “The Mousetrap” is one of several important “mini-traps” within Hamlet. The theme is first established by Polonius in Act I, Scene Three: “Yes, leap to catch the woodcocks. I know, / When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul is / Swears oaths to the tongue. These flames, daughter, / Giving more light than heat, quenched in both, / Even in their promise, as is being done, / You must not take them for fire” (1.3.115-20). Warning his daughter Ophelia of Hamlet's tricks, Polonius ironically foreshadows his own death at Hamlet's hands while spying. In fact, it foreshadows the end of his entire family. There are three different instances where Polonius, Ophelia, or Laertes' use of entrapment leads to their respective downfall. The first is when Polonius uses Ophelia as bait while he and the king watch to find out what is ailing Hamlet. Ophelia is not the mastermind behind the plan, but she willingly participates. Naturally Hamlet, shocked to see the ghost of his father, is dejected and angrily condemns all women after his unsuccessful relations with his mother. He is aggressive and, at times, openly violent with Ophelia. She, thinking that the plan was nothing more than a harmless remark from her lover, finds herself destroyed by Hamlet's reproach: "And I, among the most dejected and miserable women... Oh, poor me / I have seen what I have seen, see what I see” (3.1.158-64). As the story progresses, Ophelia collapses into childish madness, still tortured by Hamlet's reckless misogyny. Where once she was the spring in the plan to trap Hamlet, she now is the woodcock, trapped by his own naivety The second case occurs when Polonius decides to hide behind a curtain in Gertrude's bedroom while she argues with Hamlet about his recent behavior. He uses a woman as bait in his plan to discover the Hamlet's madness and, once again, finds himself in a worse situation. There are three main actors here: two springes (Polonius, Gertrude) and a woodcock (Hamlet). predictable. Polonius makes a noise, forcing Hamlet to blindly thrust his sword through the curtain behind which Polonius is hiding, killing him in turn. His response to Gertrude is less physical and more verbal, although there are suggestions that Hamlet assaults his mother. Entering the scene, Hamlet just succeededto surprise his uncle with the comedy and has just finished telling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is aware of their ambiguous intentions: “But look now, how unworthy / you make of me! You would play with me; you would seem to know my strings…Call me what instrument you will, though you may stir me, you cannot play upon me” (3.2.371-81). In short, the audience is rooting for Hamlet to emerge from the ashes as a hero with a clear path to glorious revenge. However, his condescending tone towards the dying Polonius and misogynistic actions towards his mother lead the audience to a different conclusion at the end of this scene. Shakespeare's use of traps and good versus evil imagery creates two categories of characters: hero and villain. And although Hamlet often enters scenes of entrapment with the elan of a hero, he leaves in the guise of a hero because of his actions toward others. Alas, comes the final trap: the king, Laertes and the sick body Politico against Hamlet. , who recently returned to England. If the previous two plots were traps, this final one is a minefield: Claudius and Laertes create traps, backup plans, etc., all with the end goal in mind of killing Hamlet. First: “He, being negligent,/very generous and free from all artifice,/will not examine the papers, so that with ease,/or with a little shuffling, you may choose/a sword without rest, and, in one passage of practice,/Requisition it for your father” (4.7.134-9). Second: “I will anoint my sword… I will touch my tip/With this contagion, which, if I slightly irritated it,/Might be death” (4.7.140-9). Third, "...And if he asks for a drink, I will have prepared for him / A cup for the occasion, to sip from only, / If perchance he escapes thy locked poison, / Our purpose may remain there" (4.7.159 - 62). Three floors for a final, climatic scene, in which someone, although not yet guaranteed, will die. In context, Hamlet killed Laertes' father and drove his sister mad. He unsuccessfully attempted to kill the king and casually killed others in the process (e.g. Polonius). For the first time, Hamlet is the actual villain who enters the stage, his crimes much fresher in the audience's mind than the king's at this point in the play. So when Hamlet dies heroically, and Laertes does not, the roles are reversed one last time. Laertes also recognizes this cycle: “Well, like a woodcock to my own spring,/Osric,/I am justly slain with my own treachery” (5.2.307-8). This statement recalls Polonius' first statement, which ironically ends his family's story tragically. This statement, on a more general level, also swaps the roles of Springe and Beccaccia compared to Polonius' statement at the beginning of the play. Laertes emphasizes the fact that, in traps, it is not the role one takes that is important, but rather the role one takes up after leaving the plot. This idea is accentuated by the permanence of the final scene: all roles are assured without the possibility of changing later. The traps are not only set in the public sphere, but also on a personal level. So far the analysis has focused on two-person traps with a clear winner and loser. However, some of the work's most important traps, the figurative ones, never reach clear conclusions. Hamlet is trapped by his tendency to overthink situations. He is retarded by his academic commitments, as he cannot enter the realm of barbarism long enough to fulfill his father's demands in the most brutal manner. In the same way that Hamlet is trapped by his mind, Claudius is trapped by his conscience. He says, “Experience what repentance can do. What cannot?/But what can when one cannot repent?/O.