Similarly, as with all the other supporting characters in Hamlet, Claudius isn't created to his maximum capacity. His essential job in the play is to bring forth Hamlet's disarray and outrage, and his resulting search for truth and life's significance. Moreover, Claudius is certainly not a static character.
Claudius is an altogether different individual. The Ghost alludes to him as "that forbidden, that defile beast" (1.5.42), and we further understand that his wrongdoing is what is "rotting the province of Denmark."
This King has submitted a constructive slaughter of his kin and has had relations with the Queen with "the black magic of his mind" (I.v.47). Claudius portrays traits of exceedingly terrible human instinct - desire, covetousness, defilement, and gluttony. Claudius and his degenerate court luxuriate in the delights of the flesh.
Just as a snake harms its casualties through the venom blistering from its sharp teeth, Claudius harms Hamlet's dad even before the play starts and afterward infuses the equivalent "something poisonous" into the province of Denmark.
Claudius is insightful and capable, however not constantly moral or good. Same is with a snake, obviously. Astute and capable, these creatures regularly swallow their deadened casualties. Snakes, obviously, as individuals from the set of all animals, act exclusively on sense and are unequipped with non-violence or ethical quality. This is so unique in relation to Claudius, following up on his basest intuition of desire with a specific end goal to guarantee the homicide of Hamlet's dad and the marriage of Gertrude?
Indeed, I figure an malevolent snake would be the ideal image for Claudius, considering he is liable of almost the majority of the seven savage sins: envy (of the father), desire (of the mother), voracity (for the crown), anger (at Protagonist for destroying his arrangement), sloth (for securing Guildenstern, Ophelia, Polonius, and Rosencrantz in spying), and I'm certain avarice and pride are in there as well.