The word "obligation" infers that the mourning process occurs because it has to - not because the mourning is genuine. The theme of appearance and reality again surfaces. Claudius discounts Hamlet's genuine grief and decides that his sorrow is "impious stubbornness".
"A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,.
an understanding simple and unschool"d".
The length of this sentence is used to create an impact. Claudius wishes his message .
to be bold, thus he uses constant negative verbs - "unfortified", "impatient". He cleverly uses prefixes to emphasize all what he believes Hamlets lacks during his time of mourning - patience, emotional self-control. Claudius manages to transform the act of grieving into the act of a weak individual with the use of clever language. Thus, through language, Shakespeare has presented Claudius as an intelligent man and a skilled politician who has the ability to manipulate the situation to try and get Hamlet past the grieving process. This may have been viewed as a commendable act were it not for the way in which he portrays grief - an act which weak people undertake. This in itself gives an insight into the remorseless characteristic which Shakespeare has used for Cladius" character.
Claudius's skill with words is essential to his character. This is because he is living a lie. He is constantly trying to create the right image to hide his deed:.
"Hamlets transformation - so I call it".
The noun "transformation" is used as a euphemism. By using this as opposed to "madness", he both communicates his message and adopts the roles of a concerned "parent". This is accentuated throughout the play by his use of the possessive pronoun - "our son". What this reveals about Claudius's character can be interpreted in two ways. It can be deduced that Claudius is selfish, constantly using his language skills to exploit every situation for his own benefit. However, it can be also viewed that by giving Claudius immense talent with words, Shakespeare wished to portray Claudius as a very skilled politician, who would make a good king.
