i think its important to note the traits of the people involved and how each of them is locked there. everyone who lives at elsinore and who has lived at elsinore is infected with it. that Not Doing, some sort of corruption. and it manifests in different ways but it manifests strongest in hamlet, who is self-aware enough to recognize that something is Wrong. in hamlet, elsinore manifests as a prison, a stand-in for denmark. hamlet leaves the castle once and returns. he leaves the castle again and returns. something ties him to the house. if elsinore is the source of the play’s corruptions, it follows that everyone From elsinore has been affected by that.
this of course manifests in the royal family; the king is the country, the castle is the country.
hamlet senior is a great example of this: he shows up after his murder as a ghost. he shows up at the castle, he cannot leave the castle. he has a mission, but because he’s immaterial and incorporeal he cant enact his own revenge - so he turns to his son, the extension of his body politic. except. there’s a corruption in the line.
because the line passes through gertrude. gertrude is from Elsewhere, kept at elsinore by her duties as queen. gertrude isn’t a native Dane - and it is precisely that which allows her to do what she does. gertrude is one of very few characters in the play to make a move - marrying claudius. this ensures that she stays the queen. in the absence of a king, she would have been demoted. but gertrude is tied to elsinore too - it is better to rule in hell, etc. her origins make it possible for her to choose, but she chooses the castle to keep her crown.
claudius is particularly interesting because, as the king’s brother, he must have been raised (presumably at elsinore) as a prince with the knowledge that he would never be king. sound familiar?
in that respect, claudius is closer to hamlet than either would be inclined to admit; this comparison opens some interesting doors when one considers the lengths hamlet goes to to avoid becoming a king. he travels, he learns. he gets out of the house for as long as he can, until Something brings him back. claudius, not being in line for the throne, would have had as much opportunity to do that; their motives may be very different, but the process seems the same. hamlet avoids the crown while claudius goes to extremes to secure it for himself. and once he has secured it, there’s no way to leave the house - because he has become the house. trapped in his childhood home, claudius becomes paranoid and restless.
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