Hamlet: The Character of Gertrude         

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 tantalising lack of evidence that she returns the King's obsession with her.

She is protected by the ghost, too, who commands Hamlet not to punish her and intervenes in the closet scene when Hamlet's attack on Gertrude is at its height. The ghost's instructions to his son are specific:

"But howsomever thou pursuest this act

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught.." (I. v. 84-6)

Hamlet, too reminds the audience twice how Gertrude behaved in the presence of his dead father, which serves to emphasise the fickleness she has shown since the King's death.

At no time, though, is there evidence that Gertrude was aware of the murder. Her reaction to the play-within-the-play is irritation that Hamlet "hast thy father (Claudius) much offended" and the disclosure he makes to her in the closet scene provokes what seems like genuine horror. Her remorse is for the incestuous nature of her marriage and not for any part in the killing of the King.

There is a possibility that her actions after her husband's death were prompted by self preservation. A convenient marriage to a known protector would, after all, ensure her safety and that of her beloved son, whom she may have considered too green to take on the responsibility of ruling a threatened country. She does show that she is easily persuaded to act in the way others want her to act. Polonius, for example, has no problem making her agree to let him hide in her room when she sees Hamlet and she is very quick to report her findings to Claudius after the murder.

She also shows compassion for the plight of Ophelia when she loses her mind, and later it is Gertrude who reports the death in some of the most poetic lines in the play. She obviously approved of the affection which existed between Hamlet and Ophelia, but this only becomes apparent after Ophelia's death.

Like Ophelia, Gertrude is a victim of circumstance. She is not completely guiltless, but there seems to be no evidence that there is any desire in her to do evil to others. Indeed she is aware that her actions, her "o'er hasty marriage", may even be the cause of her son's apparent madness. If she commits a crime at all it is the crime of immorality, and, like everyone who is drawn in to the evil which Claudius begins, she pays the price by dying of poison intended for her son. Shakespeare's message is uncompromising - defiance of Heaven and God's laws leads to retribution.

Free essays