The Importance Of Communication In Hamlet

As Hamlet says, ?Frailty thy name is woman?, her actions cause Hamlet to curse women all together. In the first Act, Claudius and Gertrude question Hamlet?s depression. They push Hamlet to accept his father?s death and move on with his life. Hamlet hides his feelings about his mother and the king. He should have admitted his hatred for their marriage. While Hamlet is holding back his feelings, he becomes more angered at their attempts to calm him. Gertrude is also aware of Hamlet?s feelings for Ophelia and uses this as an excuse for Hamlet?s madness. Hamlet has plenty of time to confess the cause of his madness and that?s what he should have done. Instead, Hamlet allows his mother to think he is madly in love rather than tell the truth. After Hamlet delivers his play and sees guilt in his uncle, Gertrude sends for Hamlet. Instead of hurting his mother, he insists on her to tell him the truth. It would have been easier to just go ahead and hurt Gertrude. Also, Hamlet should have acted more swiftly on this, then her confession could have taken place earlier in the play. This could save him from a great deal of pain and leave his thoughts for other problems.

     Gertrude as well is exploited by men throughout the play. Gertrude is seen as a prize to Claudius, a way for him to succeed to the thrown without having Hamlet take over. Although it is not doubted that he loves her, but he first uses her to get the kingship without question. Claudius has been wooing Gertrude even before the death of the king, which a reason for the “most wicked speed” in which they were married. (Act 1, scene 2. line 156) Gertrude is also used by Polonius, but more so she allows him to spy on her having a discussion with Hamlet. Polonius tells the Queen that Hamlet is coming to her private chambers and that she should have a discussion with him on his lately “unrestrained” acts. She replies to Polonius that she will “warrant” him, and “fear [her] not” for she is on his side. (Act 3 Scene 4 Lines 1-7) Gertrude however is not an unintelligent woman, so a reader would wonder why she would allow herself to be exploited by Claudius. Carolyn G. Heliburn agrees with Gertrude’s intelligence saying that her speeches are “not the mark of a dull and shallow woman.”

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.

Hamlet puts off avenging his father’s death because of his severe Oedipus complex. Hamlet did not kill Claudius until his mother had already died. This is a sign that Hamlet did not want to hurt his mother because of the sexual feelings he had for her. Hamlet felt that killing Claudius would hurt his mother too much, and he could not do that to her. Hamlet wants to save Gertrude form Claudius because of his feelings for her, his incestual feelings, not maternal ones. Subconsciously the queen knows the effect she has on her son. Gertrude tries to play off that fact that’s she knows about Hamlet’s feeling several times in the play. Gertrude is very fond of her son and wants to protect him however she can. This can be seen in the play, many times even up to when Gertrude is about to die. She tries to save Hamlet from drinking the poison himself. She also decided not to tell Claudius that Hamlet knows what Claudius has done.

Initially the reader can understand Hamlet’s anger with Gertrude when she marries his uncle. “O, most wicked speed, to post / with such dexterity to incestuous sheets,” says Hamlet in disgust towards his mother’s marriage (1.2.161-12). Gertrude did marry the king’s brother quickly after his death, so any resentment Hamlet feels towards his mother is justified. The reader sympathizes even more with the character when Hamlet says of the union, “It is not, nor it cannot come to good. / But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue” (1.2.163-164). It appears that Hamlet is attempting to be respectful towards his mother, so it’s easy to appreciate his character in the beginning.

Gertrude appears oblivious to the fact that Claudius killed King Hamlet to take over the crown and to have her. Her decision to marry her deceased husband’s brother had a lot of people questioning her sanity also. “The funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables” (Shakespeare 17). Gertrude had gotten married so quick after the funeral of King Hamlet that the food from the funeral catered for the wedding. During the play that Hamlet produced to show people what Claudius had done, she was blind to the fact that it was actually Claudius that he was talking about. Due to Hamlet knowing the truth, Claudius has been trying to kill 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:

It is clear how Hamlet a lack of communication with his family. Although what happen with his father do not justify his actions it does justify his emotions. Hamlet loved his father very much. With any loss of a dear person, the human reactions towards the lost are always unknown. The grief Hamlet felt was so intense it was the main reason on why he could not forgive his mom for marrying his uncle. It is unknown why Queen Gertrude married King Claudius. Perhaps she married him for love, grief, or even the sake of Denmark, During this time period if the king died the queen must remarry or the prince must get married to become the next king if neither of the events happens the next person (not the prince) must take the throne. Queen Gertrude

Shakespeare applies characterization of Queen Gertrude to display Hamlet's feeling of betrayal and anger towards her. Hamlet adored his father and was dissatisfied that his mother appeared as if she was not in the similar depressive state that Hamlet was in. Hamlet began to feel the betrayal because two months after her husband’s death, her and Claudius decide to get married. Hamlet believed his mother

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

Despite the fact that Gertrude has very little role and few lines in the play still she is central to the action of the play. Prince Hamlet hatred and disgust for her mother as she marries Claudius, is one of the main important reflections of the play. This is because in times of Shakespeare, marrying husband's brother after husband's death was considered as a sin and act of being disloyal with the husband. Secondly, Prince Hamlet also considered Claudius inferior to his father, the late King Hamlet, in all aspects of life.

      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

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

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.