Hamlet Themes - Prayer

What's this - a murderer who prays? It's a sign of how three-dimensional this villain Claudius is. However his efforts are not working out because the guilt of the murder lies too heavily on hm: "Pray can I not ... My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent". It shows how sometimes our prayers find difficulty in ascending to heaven because of obstacles we have put in the way: He is in no doubt about the effectiveness of prayer, in theory, but has trouble making it work for himself.

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