Suicidal Gertrude In Hamlet

Gertrude never seems to get in the middle of Hamlet and Claudius' disputes, so many tend to assume that she is involved in King Hamlet's murder. However, there is an abundance of in-text evidence that suggests she is very innocent and oblivious to Claudius' plots throughout the play. Most of this evidence supporting that Gertrude has nothing to do with King Hamlet's sudden death. From the start, Gertrude comes off as a very clueless and almost blind character to the things happening around her. She mourns for the death of the man she loved, but with her country in mind does what she thinks is best. Sadly, while doing so, she involves herself in a dispute that turns deadly.

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.

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

By the end of this scene, however, we see that she is penitent and appears willing to help her son. This exhibits how easily Gertrude is persuaded by Hamlet's incessant persistence, and emphasises her tendency to be dominated by, and mistreated by men, even to the extent of her own son. Gertrude's mistreatment is also obvious within her relationship to Claudius. For example, When Gertrude tells Claudius of Polonius' slaughter by Hamlet, rather than fret about the danger posed to his wife; he remarks that has he "been there," it would have been dangerous to him.

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:

The nature of Shakespeare’s plays, with its notable lack of stage directions, gives way to multiple different interpretations of the characters, plot, and even of the purpose of the play itself. The character of Gertrude is no exception. Gertrude’s character and motives, being left ambiguous, have been interpreted in many different ways in various productions of Hamlet. Was she implicit in the death of King Hamlet, or was she merely a clueless bystander? Did she drink the poison as an act of motherly self-sacrifice, or was it an accidental tragedy? Zefferelli’s Hamlet (1990) and Almereyda’s Hamlet (2000) provide two different interpretations on Gertrude’s characterization. In particular, there exist substantial differences in their renditions of Gertrude’s death—while Almereyda portrays her death as a noble suicide, Zefferelli paints her death as a by-product of her unceasing lust for pleasure. Furthermore, in that scene, we also notice a difference in Hamlet’s attitude towards Gertrude. By analyzing these points along with other scenes within the context of the entire film, we manage to develop an understanding of Almereyda’s and Zefferelli’s view on Gertrude and how use that to develop the tragic conclusion of the final scene.

Overall, we can conclude that Gertrude is a complicated character but her most revealed characteristics are self-serving and scheming. Most of the time she doesn’t seem to truly love Hamlet but towards the end of the play we can catch glimpses of her motherly love and instincts coming out. This is apparent especially when talking to Ophelia. She loves the attention that she receives from Claudius. She takes every opportunity she can find to keep that attention fixated upon her. Many times through the play she acts very self-centered and more concerned for herself then for those around her. While we may not know if she was involved with her late husband’s murder we are told that she feels guilty by both the ghost of Old Hamlet as well as herself.

Gertrude says “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailèd lids, Seek for thy noble father in the dust.Thou know 'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,Passing through nature to eternity.”(Shakespeare i.ii.70-75) This quote from the play is a conversation between Gertrude and hamlet where Gertrude is telling hamlet to accept her love and marriage with King Claudius. She also tells him to stop mourning over his dead father, and that death is inevitable and everyone has to die some day. She urges him not to wear black clothing for his father because to her it seems about high time that he got over his loss. While hamlet later on agrees that death is something everyone must go through his mother confronts him about why mourning his father’s death is something so special to him. In the course of Hamlet’s mourning the mother is still accepting over how upset he is and does not once come to conclusions about Hamlet being mentally disturbed. Gertrude’s character is portrayed as one that sways in any direction because of her incestuous act, she comes off to be a weak woman that is in a constant search for affection and

Hamlet claims that he is only acting crazy, but it seems more likely that he actually is. Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, assumes that he has gone crazy because of his father’s unexpected death. She tries to bring in Hamlet’s friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to see if they can find the root of Hamlet’s mental issues and cheer up Hamlet. Gertrude, however, fails to realize the role she plays in causing Hamlet’s poor mental state. After the death of Hamlet’s father, Gertrude wastes no time in marrying the new king and maintaining her position as queen. She does not seem to notice the negative impact this has on Hamlet’s disposition. She could simply be pretending that she does not notice how her actions affect Hamlet, but more likely, she is more concerned about maintaining her status as queen than the mental state of her beloved son. Hamlet shows his true feelings about his mother when he says, “O God! A beast, that wants discourse of reason, / Would have mourn’d longer—married with my uncle, / My father’s brother, but no more like my father / Than I to Hercules: within a month” (1.2.150-153). He, however, keeps the disgust he feels at his mother sleeping in “incestuous sheets” to

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.

A few characters in this play give insight on Gertrude that point in the direction of her being shallow and evil. One example is late in the first act when Hamlet cries “O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, dammed villain!” This is when, deep in thought, Hamlet realizes that his mother could have possibly taken part in his father’s death and he thinks she’s evil. In Hamlet’s head, everything makes sense now because it is now understandable how she got over the death so quickly. This is the first time that Hamlet realizes his mother’s true character. This is a very imperative notion about Gertrude’s personality because for her very own son to think a validation like this is extreme. Often times a man will love and defend his mother until the day he dies, while Hamlet, on the other hand, is thinking of her playing a role in his father’s death. When the ghost speaks of Gertrude’s speedy marriage, it provides more evidence of her shallowness. The King’s ghost says that she is “seeming virtuous”. He is basically saying that while she looks holy and righteous, she isn’t. The new King offered her something (or many things) that she wanted, and she took the bait and married him. She didn’t care that her husband had just died, or how her son would react to this

Thesis Statement: Gertrude, the wife of late King Hamlet was disloyal to her husband and also responsible for his death.

      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

Ultimately, Hamlet does feel Gertrude betrayed both his father and himself. Hamlet's anger is so intense, he wishes to kill Gertrude, but he cannot, for the ghost specifically tells Hamlet not to hurt his mother, "Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive / Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven / And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge / To prick and sting her" (Hamlet, I, v, 92-95). He can only attack her with hurtful words that allude to her role as women.

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.