Literary study on Hamlet by William Shakespeare Hamlet by William Shakespeare clearly explores both individual experience and themes of universal significance. In the beginning of the play we see some examples of deceit and lying. The queen has married her dead husband’s brother Claudius. According to the law of the time this was wrong but somehow the Danish courts let the marriage go on, probably because of the king’s power. The queen married …showed first 75 words of 424 total…

…showed last 75 words of 424 total…forth the marriage tables”. In other words he is saying that the marriage came so quickly after the funeral that they served up the same food cold. This shows Hamlet’s hate of deceit and lying at the start of the play. Further on in Hamlet’s experience of other people’s deceit, and most of the characters are spying or being spied on, we see Hamlet starting to join the rest of the characters.