King Claudius and Lady Macbeth are similar in that they both let their crave of power and desire for the crown drive them to deceitfulness, corruption, and even murder, to obtain it. King Claudius and Lady Macbeth are so greedy for wealth and power that they will let nothing get in their way, even if it means deceiving the ones they love. King Claudius was in love with his brother¹s wife and desired his position as king. In order to obtain these things he went behind Gertrude, his lover¹s, back and murdered her husband. Shortly after, he married her and took the crown. Not only was this extremely deceitful to Gertrude, but it hurt Hamlet, his nephew, extremely. Lady Macbeth was indeed as power hungry as Claudius, and she too plotted a murder in order for her husband to obtain the crown. In doing this she was extremely deceitful of her lover also. She employed many conniving tricks in order to convince Macbeth to kil

Although Claudius and Lady Macbeth are too self centered to realize that there evil doings affect others, they do in fact ruin the lives of numerous other characters in the plays. When Claudius murdered King Hamlet he had no idea that it would result in the death and destruction of so many others. Claudius most obviously affected Hamlet who started off as a happy prince and ended up destrought and to the point of lunacy before his death. After Hamlet¹s father died he was never the same again. Hamlet¹s relationship with all the people close to him such as, Ophelia and his Mother, were destroyed. He became so thirsty for revenge that he accidentally killed his old friend Polonious and eventually his uncle. In the end Hamlet was affected the greatest when he was cut by the poison sword of Laertes, whom had been convinced by Claudius to kill Hamlet. Another character that was greatly affected by Claudius¹s selfishness was Ophelia. Before King Hamlet¹s Death Ophelia and Hamlet were in love, but after his death Hamlet became so obsessed with revenge that Ophelia meant hardly nothing to him. Although he still loved her deep inside, he treated her horribly partly as a result of his encroaching madness, and partly as a ploy to throw off Claudius and his spies. Ophelia was so shocked and confused over Hamlet¹s complete betrayal that she could hardly go on living, and in the end she became so overwhelmed that she committed suicide. Lady Macbeth also affected many characters with her deceitfulness. The character most greatly affected was her husband, Macbeth. Until he was convinced by his wife, Macbeth had decided that he was going to stay loyal to the King, and put all notions of murder out of his head. In Act I, scene seven Macbeth declares, ³We will proceed no further in this business,² meaning he has decided to end all thoughts of murdering the king. Lady Macbeth will not give up though, and instead begins to try to further lure Macbeth into participating in her corrupt plans. Eventually she is successful in doing this, and Macbeth murde

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Approximate Word count = 1379
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)