the betrayal

The trust that a person has in his friends and family is paramount to a healthy life and quality relationships. Once this trust is broken or betrayed, a person's security can be shattered, leaving him doubtful and insecure about all aspects of life. When betrayal of trust is coupled with a sinister action like murder, a person can lose all sense of right and wrong and react in ways that protect himself from those he feels betrayed by, which is what Maynard Mack is trying to say in his statement about Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, "The young man growing up is not to be allowed simply to endure a rotten world, he must also act in it." In this Shakespearean tragedy, Hamlet is the young prince who gets involved in such a scenario. "He is a young man who comes home from his university to find his father dead, and his mother remarried to his father's murderer. Subsequently the woman he loves rejects him, he is betrayed by his friends and finally and most painfully, he is betrayed by !

a mother whose mutability seems to strike at the heart of human affection." (Kirsch 137 -Hamlet Harold Bloom). Part of the tragedy of this play is the mere fact that Hamlet is put in a position where he cannot trust anyone or anything around him. When the theme of revenge is set and obvious from the beginning of the play, Hamlet loses

all trust in his relationships. It is this lack of trust that when coupled with revenge moves the action in the play. Shakespeare paints a picture of a man who

struggles not only with trusting himself, but also with those around him whom he should be able to trust, those being his family and his friends.

The first indication that the play is not only about revenge and grief, but also about trust and confidence is when Hamlet's loyal friends Horatio, Bernardo, and Marcellus tell him of the ghost they have seen on the roof. Hamlet is not sure he can trust his own vision since it is a seemingly an aberration of nature and goes against Hamlet's logically