Character Analysis Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: The character of Hamlet dominates Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name, yet Hamlet at the start of the play is not a commanding figure. Indeed, when we first see the Prince, his posture is defensive, Hamlet taking a passive, if resentful, stance toward the events that have befallen him. Slow to the conviction that the ghost is his dead father and that Claudius is guilty of regicide, Hamlet does …showed first 75 words of 792 total…

…showed last 75 words of 792 total…a smooth transition from one master to the next, and he abets Claudius's efforts to control Hamlet. Polonius is capable of subterfuge, but he is also a somewhat ridiculous figure, a "doting" father who hands down well-meaning platitudes like "To thine own self be true," to his son. We have the sense that Polonius is a stock comic character misplaced in a bloody tragedy. Ophelia: A completely innocent www.allshakespeare.com/plays/hamlet/ca.shtml