Claudius, as he appears in the play, is not a criminal. He is—strange as it may seem—a good and gentle king, enmeshed by the chain of causality linking him with his crime. And this chain he might, perhaps, have broken except for Hamlet, and all would have been well.
Hamlet is an element of evil in the state of Denmark.
The question of relative morality of Hamlet and Claudius reflects the ultimate problem of the play.
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