" The decaying metaphor refers to the sighting of the ghost and the corruption that Claudius' usurpation has bought to the kingdom. This putrescent imagery is continued after Claudius's crime has been to exposed in the mousetrap, he retreats to the church and prays, "Oh my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, A brothers murder." Claudius' uses biblical reference of Cain's fratricide of Abel, he acknowledges his moral corruption and sins within the extended rotting metaphor in "rank," as his conscience is filling with guilt. The murder of Old King Hamlet has caused Claudius' mindset to become corrupted in order to control Denmark for himself. Furthermore, The ghost corrupts Hamlet by commanding him to avenge his father's death, "Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder." Powerful modality and emotive word choice reflected in "unnatural murder" justifies, from an Elizabethan perspective, that an 'eye for an eye' would restore the disruption to the monarchy that Claudius has caused. Consequently, tension is further created as Hamlet's corruption is identified as he contemplates whether or not to avenge. .
The male characters, conveyed as sexually experienced, abuse and mistreat the female characters. In Hamlet, Ophelia and Gertrude are mistreated and accused of relying on their sexual appetite for self-fulfillment. Ophelia is being used as bait by Polonius and Claudius to successfully spy on Hamlet and his madness, "Ophelia walk you here. - Read on this book, That show of such an exercise may colour Your loneliness we do sugar o'er The devil himself." High modal commands/imperatives used in, "Ophelia walk you here. – Read on this book," illustrates the subservient stances females were expected to withstand, thereby appearing to be abused and mistreated. Also, during Elizabethan England, women were professed to appear feebler than man, resulting in them to be disregarded.
