In the famous ancient military work The Art of War, Sun Tzu admonishes his generals to “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” In Sun Tzu’s mind, appearing contrary to reality is considered a military strategy in order to achieve victory in war. Likewise, in Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, deceptions and indirections are used to create false appearances and thus conceal the truth. Moreover, deceptive traps are also employed by Hamlet to avenge his father. In this way, William Shakespeare reveals that the use of deceptive traps is the key for successfully achieving one’s goal.

       The word said by Polonius to teach his servant about how to use indirections reveals the wisdom of trap and foreshadows the main plot. “See you now your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth; And thus do we of wisdom and of research, with windlasses and with assays of bias” (2,1,70). Polonis uses several metaphors in his sentence: the deceptive bait used to capture a fish, the indirect course in hunting and the curve which brings the ball to the final location. All these examples are use of traps in real life events, which suggest that deceptive baits are used as an approach to achieve certain purpose and to reveal the hidden “truth” In order to inquire information about Polonius’ son, Polonius teaches Reynaldo how to induce strangers to speak the truth by using the art of language. He concludes “By indirections find direction out” (2,1,73). On the surface, Polonius teaches Reynaldo the method to let strangers speak what really happened to his son, moreover, he points out all these deceptive “indirections” serve to reveal the “directions” and the hidden truth. As a noble man, Polonius’ understanding of “indirections” foreshadows that other royal characters like Hamlet and King Claudius have similar thoughts and attitudes towards deception and will use deceiving baits as a method to either reveal the truth or for other purposes. Hence, Polonius’ word introduces the theme of deception in Hamlet and foreshadows how royal members have a similar understanding and how they will use the wisdom of deceptions later in the text.

       Through the metaphors of traps and baits, we can see deceptive traps are used by characters in Hamlet for their own goods. When Polonius hears the love poems written by Hamlet to show his love to his daughter Ophelia, he warns Ophelia “Ay, <springs> to catch woodcocks” (1, 3,124). The romantic word is only a bait used to capture a woman’s heart. Also, Hamlet tells the king Claudius and his mother the name of the play is called “The Mousetrap” (3, 2, 216). The verbal irony shows that this play functions as a “trap” to Hamlet since it helps him capture the appearance of Claudius and therefore determine whether he has committed the murder to his father or not. Near the end when Hamlet stabs Laertes with his own poisoned sword, Laertes says “Why as a woodcock to mine own springe” (5,2,336). Though the poisoned sword is originally prepared to kill Hamlet, ironically, Laertes dies under his own trap. All of these examples use instruments “springe”, “mousetrap” which are designed to catch animals demonstrate how each character use their language and actions to deceive others for their own good.

       Both Laertes and Hamlet use different deceptive traps in order to accomplish revenges for their fathers. In the ending of act 2 scene 2, Hamlet claims that by showing the play in front of the King, he can “catch the conscience of the king” since the guilty of committing a murder “will speak though “it has no tongue” (2,2,619). The play itself is a deceptive trigger which makes the guilt in a criminal’s heart to appear thorough their facial expressions. This play is the first step of his revenge plan since it allows Hamlet to ensure that the King is the murderer of his father. Similarly, Laertes plans a deceptive duel in order to kill Hamlet who stabbed his father Polonius in the previous scene. “And for <that> purpose I will anoint my sword” (4,7,160). By putting a fatal poison on his sword, he is able to kill Hamlet in the duel through a dishonorable way and therefore accomplish his goal to revenge for his father. Both of them use deceptive actions and methods which might seem deceitful and dishonest to strive for justice in their eyes. Thus, deception can be used for revenge through the use of dishonest and deceiving methods. 

       In conclusion, although different characters use deceptions for different purposes, we see that these traps are extremely useful approaches to reveal the truth and accomplish people’s goals. It is interesting to notice that characters in Hamlet which understand the wisdom of deception are all members of royal or noble families. In Julius Caesar, a political tragedy written by William Shakespeare, the theme of politician is revealed by the character Antigone. In this text, Antigone understands how to use deceptive traps just like the characters in Hamlet and his brilliant speech skills allows him to convince and even mislead the public to be against Brutus. From these two texts, the skills of speaking deceptive language, using indirections and dishonest approaches to reveal the truth were qualities which could be found in most politicians. However, seeing the tragic ending of the noble and honorable man Brutus in Julius Caesar and the death of royal members in Hamlet, it seems like William Shakespeare himself didn’t praise the idea of using deception and consider politician as dishonest men. The theme of deception is contradicting since politicians use dishonest way to accomplish what they consider is ethical and honorable.