The Troubled Relationship Between Gertrude and Hamlet

The Troubled Relationship Between Gertrude and Hamlet In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Claudius murders his brother, the King of Denmark, and subsequently usurps the Danish throne. Shattering the purity of the royal family, he allures Queen Gertrude into an incestuous wedding so hastily that â€Å"The funeral baked meats / Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables† (I.ii.180-1). Lost in this sullied household is Prince Hamlet, shrouded in the black of mourning, who condemns his mother’s quick, lustful willingness to marry his uncle. Hamlet’s abject tears melt into vengeance, however, when the ghost of his father orders him to â€Å"Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder† (I.v.25). He complicates his command to the Prince by admonishing him to†¦show more content†¦Bradley’s point, however, that â€Å"[Gertrude] loved to be happy, like a sheep in the sun† ignores her active involvement in the court espionage and her struggle with guilt near the end of the play. On the other hand, some examine her through the words of her fellow characters. Marvin Rosenberg, compared with Bradley’s critique, presents a largely different view of the queen: But many who listen to what Claudius, old Hamlet, and his son say of Gertrude discern quite another queen – a woman of some power, described by such adjectives: cunning, deceptive, sensual, erotic, loving, shrewd, urbane, hard, conscienceless, lustful, sexy, the epitome of falseness, corrupted (71). Within this spectrum of analyses, Gertrude remains a complicated, enigmatic character; yet, at her core, she is the focus of love for three formidable men: old Hamlet, his son, and Claudius. Using the queen’s dialogue to decipher her complex connection and interactions with Hamlet, however, is challenging because she tends to eschew revealing oratory in favor of terse statements. Una Ellis-Fermor correctly argues: â€Å"In Gertrude’s speech there are remarkably few images, and those generally colorless and drawn almost entirely from commonplace themes† (89). For example, in II.ii she interrupts Polonius’s exaggerated discourse, saturated with rhetorical flourishes such as antanaclasis and antistrophe (â€Å"... cause of this effect - /Show MoreRelatedClaudius Character Analysis858 Words   |  4 PagesWilliam Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, one of the most popular plays ever written. Claudius causes a war between passion and responsibility when he murders the father of Hamlet, the main character, and then marries Hamlets mother Gertrude. Claudius killed Hamlets father and then married Gertrude only so he could take the crown and become King. 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