Hamlet's characterization of Claudius is not fair and is biased due to his grief and the image he conjures up of his deceased father. He seems to be caught up in the disputes between Claudius and Old Hamlet; he fails to see that for all his condemnation of Claudius, he is much more like the new king in personality and character than he ever was to his deceased father whom he elevated to the status of a god on earth . In Hamlet which does not see Claudius as anything other than a devious and murderous tyrant, Shakespeare gives the audience the opportunity to see all sides of the new king through other characters and lets the audience decide whether Hamlet is right or wrong . In a way, Shakespeare ends up showing Claudius' strong humanity, both his ability to do good and evil. Hamlet is clearly against Claudius and who he thinks Claudius represents - he is the antithesis of everything his father represented. His argument against Claudius, a result of the comparison to Old Hamlet, inevitably ends up being the flaw in his case. Throughout the beginning of the play, Hamlet's vision of his father is clearly deistic: "See what grace sat on that brow, the curls of Hyperion, the brow of Jupiter himself, an eye like Mars … station like the herald Mercury” (3.4. 59). This is an impossible standard for any human being to meet and implies a lack of flaws in Hamlet's view of his father. Shakespeare seems to draw the audience's attention to the obvious lack of logic when it comes to Hamlet's view of Claudius against his father - deifying old Hamlet while clearly demonizing Claudius. It is also quite ironic that, even though the old dead king is called Old Hamlet, Claudius is more like Hamlet than the young prince ever was anyway ... middle of paper ... apparently he goes crazy. . Although old Hamlet's murder is fundamentally wrong, Claudius ends up being the more level-headed one, a decidedly better option given Hamlet's growing murderous craze. Hamlet's strenuous attempts to convince himself and those around him of Claudius' evil end up being Claudius' best moments. The audience does not have just one vision of Claudius; the other characters' favorable ideas about Claudius as a king and a person allow them to see humanity, good and bad, in Claudius. An allegory of the human soul, Claude is several things: a father, a brother, a husband and a king. Like everyone else, he must play the roles to the best of his ability, but he remains very human and sensitive to the evils of human emotions ranging from worry to jealousy, anything that could easily have fueled his decisions. Page 1 of 6 Works Cited Hamlet, Shakespeare