![]() ![]() That move away from her default position paves the way for the tragic finale of the play and her role in it. She also agrees not to divulge what she knows about the murder of her first husband. “Be thou assured, if words be made of breathĪnd breath of life, I have no life to breathe She agrees not to tell Claudius that Hamlet is not mad, as everyone thinks he is, but only pretending to be mad. Despite her overwrought response to her highly emotional son, she is able to make a positive gesture. ![]() It is from that point that we begin to see something of a departure from Gertrude’s quest for safety. It is the intensity of their interaction, as well as the shock of Polonius’s assassination that shakes her out of her comfortable moral blindness. It is the first and only time that Hamlet and Gertrude are alone together on stage. The bedroom scene, Act 3 Scene 4 is pivotal. He is unable to bear the mental image of his mother having sexual intercourse with Claudius, and during his confrontation with her in her bedroom, he shows his obsession with that. Hamlet sees this and reacts very strongly to it. Even in high official moments, when Claudius is dealing with state matters, he can’t wait to get her back into bed. One consistent aspect of Gertrude, and the thing that gives her the ability to attract the most powerful men, is her sexuality, which is, at the same time, a problem for her son. ![]() In public settings or social situations we see a gracious queen, charming and confident in those settings, but always as the consort of a man, in this case, Claudius, for whom she makes a beautiful and gracious royal partner. Her instinct is to prefer being a queen to being the mother of a king. She seems, at first glance, to have no moral backbone. She seems just to move instinctively to safe positions, such as immediately going to Claudius after her confrontation with Hamlet. We never see her reflecting on her situation so we don’t know whether she’s able to think critically about it. Shakespeare does not give Gertrude any soliloquies so we never know what she’s thinking. Hamlet is frustrated by that tight-rope walking by his mother, her inability to commit, one way or another, which leads to his famous condemnation of women generally, based on what he observes in his mother – “Frailty, thy name is woman!” That places her in a position of being dependent on the men she’s involved with, and that’s why we can’t answer those questions. She moves almost like a sunflower seeking the sun, from one influential male to another. She is a very attractive woman and has something about her that has made her capture two kings. There are some things that are clear about Gertrude – she is a woman who is defined by her desire for station and affection, and she has a particular approach to men – using them to fulfill her instinct for self-preservation. Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, played by Glenn Close Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order. ![]()
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