Claudius Reconsidered

Taking a cue from Harold Bloom, I'd always thought of Claudius as a weak villain. It's true that Claudius is certainly no Iago, but it's not Iago that this play needs.* Claudius' gift as a villain is his wit and, as Hamlet points out in 1.5, his charm: "one may smile, and smile, and be a villain." Hamlet, of course, can see through the false charm, the false mourning of Claudius' opening speech in 1.2, but the rest of Denmark does not -- and Hamlet's mother does not. As such, Claudius is a perfectly fitting villain to oppose Hamlet. Claudius boasts the power to manipulate language, to make falseness seem genuine, while Hamlet himself has "that within which passeth show." False words, false personas: these are antithetical to Hamlet.

My turn-around in assessing Claudius is inspired by Marjorie Garber, who, in her Hamlet chapter in Shakespeare After All, says of Claudius that "he is in control of language, making it jump through hoops, cease to mean what it should," citing his initial speech in 1.2 as evidence. Garber makes Claudius' use of language analogous to his use of poison: "the dangerous poison of words, words, words." The serial poisoner uses guile, secrecy, charm, and wit to work his vile purposes, and it is fitting that in the end he is done in, in part at least, by poison.

Hamlet may see right through Claudius, but that does not mean that Hamlet can easily and handily dispatch the villain without consequences. It is true, ultimately, that Hamlet is far more clever and more skilled than Claudius is, but to kill a king, even a false one, is no simple task, and Claudius' particular strength, his underhanded control of appearances, is to Hamlet what Kryptonite is to Superman. And certainly Hamlet does have his own issues to work out before he can rid the world of his foe.
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* One might wonder what a Hamlet v. Iago showdown might look like. I'd lay my money on Hamlet, who seems unlikely to fall prey to the kind of schemes that laid Othello low. Hamlet, for instance, knows how to discern a true friend (Horatio) from false ones (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern).