Honesty and Deception

Hamlet of Shakespeare's Hamlet is both honest yet deceptive. Although this may seem as a paradox of archetypes, Hamlet does truly radiates both honesty and deception. Hamlet is honest to his friends such as Horatio. Hamlet reveals his true character to Horatio he does put on the facade of an insane person. Hamlet has just talked to the ghost and decides to put on a mask of madness: "To put an antic disposition on" (1.5.172). Hamlet tells his frineds that he is going to put on "disposition" of craziness in order to make himself not available to anyone else. He wants noone to be able to read his mind because he wants to kill King Claudius, so he has to act mad in order for everyone to pay no heed to him. Moreover, Hamlet is deceptive because to everyone else he is putting on an act in order to trick everyone else. He wants people to think that he is crazy, so noone will be able to read his mind and figure out that his intentions are to kill King Claudius. Hamlet shows his deception when he stops ranting on about what the meaning of life and death is because he stops and changes his demeanor when Ophelia arrives. "The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons/ Be all my sins remembered," this quote encapsulates Hamlets metamorphosis into different people. By himself he is the philosopher, wanting to find out what everything is, to others he puts on the act of being a mad man.