Gertrude And Gertrude In William Shakespeare's Hamlet

The Extent to Which Gertrude was the Center of Evil in Hamlet by William Shakespeare

In addition, Gertrude goes through a moment where she is figuratively blind when making a judgment. When Hamlet told her about how King Hamlet was killed she didn’t believe it. He says she has been blind this whole time to it and even though Claudius appears innocent he is not. Gertrude married soon after King Hamlet’s death because her love and loneliness blinded her. This led to her to make incestuous actions. Hamlet is annoyed with his mother and how naive she is to his father’s death:

Hamlet also manages to both degrade himself and his uncle in another comparison, saying his uncle was “no more like my father / Than I to Hercules” (1.2.152-3). Though such strong comparisons to romanticized and mythical figures could are partially simple hyperbole, they also underscore some of the insecurity in Hamlet’s character. The value in recognizing this comes as Hamlet descends into his madness, whether real or imaginary, where the reader can see that, even before Hamlet deliberately decides to appear to be “mad” he has certain issues and insecurities with his own feelings. Even more significantly, this passage begins to elaborate on Hamlet’s relationship with his mother. Gertrude represents an interesting dilemma for the deconstructionist critic, as she does not create or involve herself in many conflicts or oppositions. She manages to significantly affect the plot and the subtext of the play while seeming almost insignificant as a character at first glance through the deconstructionist lens. She does not overtly affect events, and often plays the victim of circumstance. This very insignificance creates an issue for Hamlet, who is clearly quite disgusted with her behavior. He vehemently disapproves of the speed of her marriage to Claudius, saying that “a beast, that wants discourse of reason, / Would have mourned longer” (1.2.150-1), but can find no other strong criticism of her other than how fast she remarried. This strikes at the

There was an unbreakable bond between mother and son that was completely destroyed when a mother married her husband’s brother. Gertrude and Hamlet are not as close as it seems. Hamlet’s feelings had changed towards his mother after she betrayed his father. Hamlet shows his true colors for his mother when he says,

When the audience is first introduced to Claudius and Gertrude, Claudius refers to his Queen as his “imperial jointress (I.2.9).” And there are instances where she does seem to act queenly and with authority. Yet, when it comes to Hamlet, Claudius and Polonius micromanage and use her to find out Hamlet’s mental state. Though Gertrude has been kind and understanding of her son and his melancholy, there is no obvious reason to assume that Polonius’s comment that “nature makes [mothers] partial” would be true of Gertrude or that this would soften her rebuke of his more combative actions (III.3.35). It is interesting that when Polonius tells Gertrude that he is going to hide, she tells him “fear me not,” which means “don’t doubt me” (III.4.9, Mowat and Werstine pg. 168). If Polonius and Claudius had not doubted Gertrude, Polonius would not

      We first realize in Act I, Scene 2 that poor judgment is her major character flaw. As the mother of a grieving son, Gertrude should have been more sensitive to Hamlet's feelings. Instead, less than two months after King Hamlet's death, Gertrude remarries Claudius, her dead husband's own brother. Gertrude should have realized how humiliated Hamlet would feel as a

Similar to Ophelia, Gertrude experiences her son’s ill demeanor when during their conversation in her bedroom. After killing Polonius, Gertrude responds with, “O, what rash and bloody deed this is” (3.4.33), a statement which perfectly captures the crime that Hamlet committed. Again Hamlet takes

Since Gertrude caused the death of King Hamlet, she is unable to be granted to heaven. Gertrude is viewed as an incenstous person to Hamlet since he tells her God will judge her based upon her acts of incest and murder. Gertrude's involvement with the murder of King Hamlet has cost her the mother-son connection with Hamlet which leads to him having an unstable relationship with Gertrude.

Queen Gertrude is the mother to Hamlet, widow to the late King, and new wife to King Claudius as shown within the first act of Hamlet. Following her marriage to King Claudius, her relationship with her son Hamlet becomes strained. Queen Gertrude symbolizes much of what is considered to be a negative aspect of womanhood. To Hamlet, Queen Gertrude is a failure of a woman. Through his dialogue, it is presented that Hamlet desires a woman and mother to be concerned for her family and place tradition above all else. When Hamlet’s mother makes a decision outside of that realm and marries King Claudius, Hamlet strives to berate her for her choices. Through

Hamlet's rant to persuade her that Claudius is a bad man and the murderer of his father depicts his disrespect to his mother. For instance, he tells her, "You go not till I set you up a glass / Where you may see the inmost part of you." (III.iv.20-21) He is threatening his own mother! Later, he addresses her as "thou wretched, rash, intruding fool" (III.iv.32) Even though Gertrude's lust for Claudius aggravates him, Hamlet fails to show even the most fundamental respect to his superior. The relationship is full of disloyalty and distrust from Gertrude's part. First, she appeases, "Be thou assured... I have no life to breathe what thou hast said to me." (III.iv.201-203) It is assumed that she will listen to Hamlet and stay away from Claudius. However, in the next act, she displays her true loyalty to her husband, telling him that Hamlet is "in this brainish apprehension kills / The unseen good old man." (IV.I.12-13) This is partially contributed by her observations of her son talking to a ghost that she doesn't see. Polonius' death causes her to think Hamlet is dangerous, further driving the two apart. Her distrust to her son harms him by further solidifying Claudius' plan to execute him in England because the king sees him as a threat to the throne who is capable of killing. In the end, Hamlet and Gertrude's relationship take a bittersweet ending.

Moreover, as mother to Hamlet, she acts largely as a reflection of the evils within Claudius. Much of the antagonism Hamlet directs towards her is, thus, aimed clearly at the elements of her that mirror Claudius: her lustfulness and corruption. In return, however, Gertrude offers Hamlet a level of motherly love and understanding. When she says "Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet. / I pray thee, stay with us, go not to Wittenberg," she quite clearly is expressing simple love and a desire to remain close to Hamlet. While Claudius is purely destructive towards Hamlet, Gertrude's ability to filter her lustfulness and corruption through her womanhood allows her to act, at least on some level, as a positive force on Hamlet.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the role of Gertrude in "Hamlet", which is counted as one of the famous plays of English language (Thompson and Neil Taylor 74) and the most popular work of Shakespeare (Wells and Stanton 1). This essay will evaluate the role of 'Gertrude', who was the mother of Prince Hamlet and also the title character of the play.

Hardships and sufferings are common in an average person’s life, but enduring a certain amount can push a person past their limits. At times, one's actions can lead to other people's limits being broken resulting in unexpected consequences. Hamlet by William Shakespeare involves two characters named Ophelia and Gertrude who both suffer from Hamlet's verbal and physical abuse; of the two, Ophelia suffers to a greater extent because of her decision to commit suicide. The cruel insults Hamlet addresses Ophelia with hurts her deeply due to them being false, whereas the harsh words Hamlet uses to describe Gertrude with are mostly true. Ophelia gets traumatized from both Hamlet’s sayings and actions, causing her to suffer an incredible amount. Queen Gertrude, who is the mother of Hamlet, is humiliated with abusive language by her son, which causes a particularly large amount of emotional distress on her since these words are coming from her very own child. First, the two suffer major harm from Hamlet due to his insults that cause them to feel worthless and violated. Gertrude becomes extremely offended by everything Hamlet says to her. Ophelia is greatly saddened, but at the same time she is worried about Hamlet. The death of Ophelia’s father causes the devastated daughter to fall into a state of depression, ultimately ending with the young woman taking her own life. On the other hand, the mother of Hamlet does not suffer from her son's torment as much as Ophelia because her death is the result of an accident, not the outcome of tremendous emotional suffering which Ophelia’s death resulted from. Additionally, Ophelia and Gertrude go through emotional suffering due to Hamlet’s verbal insult.

Yet to Hamlet, Ophelia is no better than another Gertrude: both are tender of heart but submissive to the will of importunate men, and so are forced into uncharacteristic vices. Both would be other than what they are, and both receive Hamlet’s exhortations

It is tempting to condemn Gertrude as evil, but it is probably more sensible to consider her as weak and inconstant. Hamlet's heartfelt line "Frailty, thy name is woman" sums up his view of her actions early in the play. Like many of Shakespeare's women characters, she is "sketched in" rather than drawn in detail. We know that she has a deep affection for her son, which is commented on by Claudius in Act 4 "The Queen, his mother, lives almost by his looks." and we may assume that she has not gone to Claudius's bed unwillingly, although there is a lack of evidence that she returns the King's obsession with her.