Gertrude's Reaction To The Death Of Death In Hamlet

907 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis on the theme of mortality in hamlet

Throughout the book Hamlet, by Shakespeare there are various deaths that occur first is the death of King Hamlet, the death of Ophelia and the death of Queen Gertrude. King Hamlet was assassinated by his own brother Claudius, who is now married to the Queen Gertrude. Ophelia was Hamlet love who died by drowning in a river. Queen Gertrude has different views towards her husband 's death King Hamlet, towards Ophelia, Polonius and her own death. Shakespeare portrays Gertrude as a strong and emotionally distant character. Her reaction to the deaths of others and herself is distant. Gertrude’s lack of reaction to death allows characters to focus on themselves rather than on how she’s feeling. When Gertrude’s husband, King Hamlet died, Gertrude …show more content…

Even when Ophelia died, a girl who had always looked up to Gertrude, she didn 't have much of a sentimental aspect. “There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, when down her weedy trophies and herself fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and indued unto that element” (4,7,187-195) This is the description Queen Gertrude gives to Laertes, Ophelia 's brother when she finds out about Ophelia 's death. It almost seems like she was describing the death of a character in a novel who she had no connection with. This makes me wonder if Gertrude witnessed Ophelia 's drowning causing her to be in shocked and show no emotion towards Ophelia 's death when she went to share out the news with Laertes. If she did witness Ophelia 's death, she probably kept it a secret since she wasn’t able to do anything to safe Ophelia’s life. A similar reaction to Ophelia 's death is seen through Polonius …show more content…

When both Claudius her new husband and her son were fighting she decided to take a venom that will kill her. “Here, Hamlet, take my napkin rub thy brows. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet...I will, my lord, I pray you pardon me...No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink! I am poisoned (5,2, 292-320). Many people would be scared for their life and wouldn’t want to take their life away but unlike the Queen she is determined to consume the poison without any hesitation. She doesn’t reveal any emotion towards her own death yet she knows that by drinking the poison she will die. The Queen must have done this to try to get either Hamlet or Claudius reaction so that they would stop fighting one another. But it didn’t quite workout her way instead she ended up killing

Show More
Related

  • Custom Shakespeare's Hamlet Essay: Hamlet and Gertrude

    1925 Words  | 4 Pages

    And of the Queen’s punishment as it goes on throughout the play, there can be no doubt either. Her love for Hamlet, her grief, the woes that come so fast that one treads upon the heel of another, her consciousness of wrong-doing, her final dismay are those also of one whose soul has become alienated from God by sin.(146)

    Read More

  • Killer Queen Gertrude Analysis

    1440 Words  | 3 Pages

    Immediately after her husband’s murder, Gertrude marries his brother in order to maintain her status as Queen of Denmark. If she were truly in love with King Hamlet, and was not with him to gain some sort of societal power, she would not have attempted to maintain said power by immediately marrying Claudius. Though one can argue that she married Claudius to appease the public, as her late husband was beloved by the populous, this claim simply does not hold up when one considers the hunger for power that plagues every character in Hamlet. Additionally, Gertrude’s attitudes regarding Hamlet’s grief arouse suspicion as to her true motives. As she tells him, “…/Do not forever with thy vailed lids/” (I.ii. 69-71.) She later continues, ”Seek for thy noble father in the dust/Thou know 'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,/Passing through nature to eternity” (I.ii. 72-74.) Though this can be written off as a mother simply being worried for her son’s well being, it seems as if there is some sort of deeper meaning to these words. As long as Hamlet is in mourning, the people of Denmark will hold the late King Hamlet in their memory, and may start to get suspicious as to why Gertrude “moved on” so quickly. Furthermore, her attempts to squander Hamlet’s grief are an obvious effort to conceal her true motives from the citizens of Denmark, and to maintain her current position of power. Through her

    Read More

  • Essay On Character Development In Claudius

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    This can be proven by the change in Ophelia’s actions and behavior. Ophelia starts to sing strange songs in front of Gertrude about her father’s death and Hamlet’s madness. Ophelia sings to Gertrude and sings, “He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone, at his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone” (4.5.26-29).This tells us that Ophelia is a very soft and is a very weak character and can easily get heart broken. She cares about her family and the death of her father has shattered her into pieces, it may cause problems for her to

    Read More

  • Betrayal And Betrayal In Hamlet

    1186 Words  | 3 Pages

    With Ophelia death, this impacted Hamlet very much because he loved her. Stated in Suicide on the Stage of Hamlet and Shakespeare, “Ophelia’s is the only one widely accepted as suicide in the play. She drowns herself in a river as a means of escaping her ever worsening circumstances. Important factors surrounding her choice to end her own life include oppression from her family based on her romantic desires toward Hamlet . . .” (Joyner). With saying this, she was the different one in her family. Also said in the same article Suicide on the Stage of Hamlet, “. . . While her father and brother are welcomed into the court of King Claudius, Ophelia is not seen as an equal in this setting, and is constantly under their watch” (Joyner). This being stated, she needed an actual man to love her for whom she was and she was so use to having a male figure looking after her. Hamlet was that person who did so. Her love for Hamlet was strong and impacted her greatly. But, once her father is dead, her whole demeanor changes in the play. Some things that happen to her is that she becomes paranoid in a way and cries more often than before, then ending her own

    Read More

  • Hamlet And Gertrude's Relationship Essay

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet’s philosophy on life is also much different than Gertrude’s. Hamlet doesn’t care at all for his mortal life and is in search of life’s most elusive answers. Gertrude on the other hand, only cares for her mortal life. She enjoys the many pleasures that comes with being a beautiful, prominent queen and takes full advantage of it. She takes pride in her personal possessions and also is very sexual while Hamlet care more about the greater things in life. One person argues than, “It was her sexuality that turned Hamlet so violently against her in the first place.

    Read More

  • Stages of Grief in Hamlet, The Descendants, and Broken April

    1244 Words  | 3 Pages

    After the death of Old Hamlet and Gertrude’s remarriage to Claudius, Hamlet feels extremely angry and bitter. “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world!” (1.2.133-134). Due to the death of his father, he is already in a state of despair and the lack of sympathy that his mother has towards his sorrow does not aid him in recovering from this stage of grief. “Good Hamlet, cast thy knighted colour off, / And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark” (1.2.68-69). Hamlet is struggling to accept the fashion in which Gertrude is responding to the death of Old Hamlet; she seems quite content with her new life with Claudius, which is a difficult concept for him to accept as after the d...

    Read More

  • Hamlet And Gertrude's Relationship Analysis

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shakespeare’s Hamlet shows a unique mother and son relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet. Stemming from the death of King Hamlet, Hamlet’s depiction of his mother signals a heinous relationship amongst the two. Hamlets and Gertrude relationship looks complicated, but Gertrude still considers Hamlet as her son. After the marriage of Gertrude and Claudius, her affection towards Hamlet is not encountered, excluding for when she questioned his dark demeanor, “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark” (I, II, 68-69). Initially in the plot, Hamlet realizes that his mother is completely oblivious and naïve to her relationship with King Hamlet. Her questioning Hamlet’s character indicates that she

    Read More

  • Hamlet and Gertrude's Relationship

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    The relationship between Hamlet and Gertrude is strained at first. From the beginning of the play to act III, Hamlet is bitter with his mother. He feels this way because it has been less than four months since the death of his biological father, yet she is already remarried to Claudius. He feels his father is being betrayed from her lack of mourning. She tells her son to "cast thy nighted color off" (I.ii.68) and "all that lives must die" (I.ii.72). Clearly, she isn't grieving over her late husband's death and instead puts forth an optimistic attitude to her new husband and life. Gertrude's concern with Hamlet's odd behaviour after his encounter with Ophelia in act II scene i also shows the strain in their relationship. For example, she agrees with Claudius' words that "of Hamlet's transformation" (II.ii.5) and suggests Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy and find out the underlying cause of her son's problems. In addition to that, she consents Polonius to hide behind the tapestry in act III scene iv without Hamlet knowing. These two decisions suggest their inability to communicate. Instead, spying is required for Gertrude to find out about her son's inner mentality. The mother and ...

    Read More

  • Hamlet's Conflict Between Hamlet And King Claudius

    856 Words  | 2 Pages

    Towards the end of the play, Hamlet becomes enraged and accuses his mother for marrying his uncle in such a short time after his father’s death. The incestuous relationship suggest that his mother might have been involved in her husband’s murder, which is more reason to kill Claudius. Gertrude is a loving figure that is unable to understand Hamlet’s delicate state. Her way of solving problems is by isolating those that confront her, instead of analyzing her own mistakes and owning up to them. When Hamlet walks into his mother’s bedroom, he kills Polonius who is hiding behind the arras, and compares the murder to his mother’s guilt. “A bloody deed! Almost as bad, good mother, / As kill a king, and marry with his brother” (3.4.28-29). The queen cannot handle and truth and tells Hamlet to stop speaking. “O Hamlet, speak no more: / Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul, / And there I see such black and grained spots / As will not leave their tinct” (3.4.89-92). It’s a similar reaction of guilt, like Claudius who didn’t want to continue seeing the murder play because he didn’t want to accept the reality of his crime. In another instance, the queen decides to send Hamlet to England to prevent another death. Here, her solution is cowardly and says a lot about her character. She is inclined to go for the easy way out, rather than finding a solution to the huge mess she’s caused. In this scene, the reader can apply Gertrude as the antithesis to Hamlet. Unlike Hamlet who considered ethical and an innocent young man, Gertrude is described as traitor, wicked woman, and an adulterate. Her lust and external pleasures have impacted her family greatly and those she governs over. She is a shallow woman who does not see the consequences of her decisions. Even though she is at the highest level of authority, she seems to lack the most important qualities of a royal ruler: integrity and

    Read More

  • Ways in Which Hamlet's Behavior Was Influenced by Other Characters in Shakespeare's Work

    1380 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the beginning of the book, Hamlet behaves as any normal person would when he mourns the untimely death of his father, the King. He is dreary and depressed and also contemplates suicide. On the other hand, Gertrude behaves as though her husband’s death did not even occur, not in such a way that she is denying it happened, but as if it was insignificant and trivial. She marries her husband’s brother a month after his death. She continues to live on in a blissful world, while Hamlet is repulsed by his mother’s decision to remarry so quickly. Hamlet refers to it as an incestuous marriage. “She married:--O most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” (Act 1, Scene 2, lines 156-157, page 33). He appears to be the only one in the entire kingdom affected by the death of his father and it makes him feel more alone.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of Hamlet And Michael Almereyda's Hamlet

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    To begin, Gertrude is presented in differing manners throughout Hamlet the play versus Hamlet (2000) the film. In Shakespeare’s play, she originally is cast as a woman who has power due to her husband, but sits as a trophy wife. Craving power, safety, and comfort, she depends on men for her position and control. Seeming to have poor judgment, she never expresses self-reflection throughout the play and just seems to be a bit oblivious to everything, ultimately resulting in her death as an unaware victim of a game she ensnared herself

    Read More

  • Death And Suicide In Shakespeare's Hamlet

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    After a death, we find ways of overcoming grief in this painful world. Some people binge eat their way out while others find the easy way out, which is suicide.In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare portrays mortality in the image of death and suicide.Shakespeare develops hamlet as a man who is sensitive and uncontrolled by his actions. Hamlet faces challenges that mess with his subconscious making him feel vulnerable to making decisions that will affect his life.We can say that Hamlet was very indecisive of living or not. He showed many signs of suicidal thoughts. Many can argue and say that Hamlet was depressed. Coming back home from school to attend his father's funeral in Denmark made him discover many things, such as, his mother Gertrude remarried to Hamlet's uncle Claudius who is the dead king's brother. To Hamlet he finds it loathsome for his

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Ophelia And Gertrude In Shakespeare's Hamlet

    1626 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ophelia and Gertrude both love Hamlet and both were left heartbroken when he pushed them out of his life. However, many people do not believe that he pushed away the people he cared about. Throughout the play we see Hamlet insult, condemn, and break the hearts of people who loved him. He drives Ophelia mad and breaks his mother’s heart. Hamlet becomes self-centered and only cares about how he feels. He stops caring about Ophelia because he believes that she is a spy and rejects his mother because she rushed to get married after the death of his father, which proved to be a sin in the eyes of Hamlet. Hamlet is a brilliant young man who was once loving and kind to those around him until after the death of his father, his mother’s marriage, and

    Read More

  • Different Point Of Views In The Tragedy Of Shakespeare's Hamlet

    993 Words  | 2 Pages

    There is a scene in which the actor illustrating the late king is laying in a garden to rest. An evil relative to the king confronts the sleeping man, and pours poison into his ear (III. ii. 260-275). It was at this point that Claudius snaps, knowing that his nephew knows the truth behind his acts. Gertrude tried to calm him by asking him if he felt ill, but it was to no avail; Claudius cuts the play short, indirectly confessing to the audience that he indeed murdered the late King Hamlet. However, Gertrude still remains calm and undetected by Hamlet; he thinks of her as a harlot, but not that of a murderer. At least, that is what she thinks.

    Read More

  • Role of Women in William Shakespeare's Hamlet

    1159 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hamlet’s sense of betrayal by Gertrude, although briefly taking him off course, ultimately infuriates and intensifies his urge for revenge. Because of Gertrude’s refusal to acknowledge her sins, Hamlet becomes even more personally motivated to kill Claudius for revenge. Queen Gertrude, though ignorant, has a huge impact on the play because her betrayal and abandonment motivates Hamlet to get revenge. When writing Hamlet, Shakespeare created a complex play that relies on the roles of two important women to aid the progression of the plot. Although Queen Gertrude and Ophelia rarely speak, they function as a way for the men to become informed about Hamlet’s mental state and motives for madness.

    Read More

More about Gertrude's Reaction To The Death Of Death In Hamlet

Open Document