Claudius, the False

Mmk. So I've been trying to sum up my experience with Hamlet, like what the theme is and and what message it is trying to get across. Unfortunately, there's really not much uplifting material here to work with. I think Marcellus says it best at the very beginning of the play, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Point made.

And I would definitely say that that rotten 'something' is Claudius. The scheming, slimy uncle of Hamlet.

Exhibit A:

When I read Claudius' speech to Hamlet at the beginning of the play, I wanted to puke. He is so artificial and ingenuine! And scummy. He gives me the willies.

KING CLAUDIUS (Act I, Scene II. Hamlet)

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,            (First, he uses flattery.)
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;                         (Then, he shows a complete
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound                      detachment and callousness by
In filial obligation for some term                                              talking about death as just
To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever                              another part of life.)  

Ok, Hamlet has every right to mourn for his lost father. He is showing his love and attachment for him by doing so. It is a natural thing to be sad. Yet Claudius begins his speech by using words like duty, filial obligation, and obsequious to describe the act of mourning, as if Hamlet is putting on a show out of a sense of duty for his father. Claudius has no concept of what Hamlet feels.

In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart?

Claudius uses words like obstinate, impious stubborness, unmanly, heart unfortified, mind impatient, understanding simple and unschooled, peevish opposition to show that he sees Hamlet like a contrary child that is simply not complying because they just don't want to do what their parent wants them to.

                           Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd: whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;                            (And then he ends the sham by 
And with no less nobility of love                                         saying the love that he has for  
Than that which dearest father bears his son,                    Hamlet is a father's love, which 
Do I impart toward you.                                                     clearly he knows nothing about.)

I also find it interesting that Claudius speaks so much of Heaven in this speech. He does his best to portray Hamlet's mourning as being discordant with God's will, while the truth is that Claudius is the one that has done a pretty good job of  distancing himself from Heaven.

Everything that Claudius does, says, or is in this play is treachery. He truly is rotten and causes the fall of the royalty of Denmark.