Who is corrupt in Hamlet?

Answer 1

He isn't. Oh, he is not innocent, since he did in fact murder his brother in order to steal away his wife. But his administration is not corrupt, at least at the start of the play. He deals with the threat of Fortinbras efficiently and prudently; everybody seems to be happy with the job he is doing as king. Everyone except Hamlet, of course.

Hamlet hates Claudius, even before he meets the ghost. Whether it's because he expected to succeed his father as king, or he has the usual feeling of a stepchild to a step parent or both, nothing Claudius does can be right in Hamlet's eyes. When Claudius maintains the honoured custom of Denmark, Hamlet sneers "'tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance."

In many productions, the director creates a Claudius who is just how Hamlet imagines him to be--licentious and alcoholic. Sometimes, though, the director shows that Hamlet is unbalanced, and can even go to the length of implying that what the ghost says to Hamlet is in fact what Hamlet hopes the ghost will say by having the actor playing Hamlet also voice the Ghost.

However on the face of the play itself, there is no particular reason to think that Claudius is a corrupt king until Hamlet sets the kingdom on its ear by killing Claudius's chief counsellor and causing disturbances at theatrical performances. The problem of dealing with Hamlet, both for his own safety and the safety of the kingdom, increasingly occupies Claudius's thoughts as the play proceeds. In Kenneth Branagh's film of the play, he has Fortinbras leading a full-blown invasion of Denmark, which the whole royal court is too distracted to even notice until it is too late.

One of the factors in Shakespeare's mind was likely the question of succession to the throne. As Queen Elizabeth had no children, many people became worried as she neared death about whether she would be succeeded in an orderly way. During her lifetime she had been threatened by those who wanted to replace her with Mary Queen of Scots, and her sister had been threatened by the pretender Lady Jane Grey. To the Elizabethan mind, the proper person to succeed Hamlet Sr. would be Hamlet, and Claudius was an usurper. Part of the theme of the play (as in other Shakespeare plays such as Macbeth, the eight plays in the War of the Roses cycle, and Julius Caesar) is that to disturb the passage of power to the heir is to cause an unstable political situation. In this sense the adminsistration of Claudius might have been seen to be corrupt just because he was the king's brother, not his son.

Answer 2

Claudius