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The Gertrude who does emerge clearly in Hamlet is a woman defined by her desire for station and affection, as well as by her tendency to use men to fulfill her instinct for self-preservation—which, of course, makes her extremely dependent upon the men in her life. Hamlet’s most famous comment about Gertrude is his furious condemnation of ...
- Act I: Scene I
Hamlet was written around the year 1600 in the final years...
- Polonius
The secure and happy family unit of Polonius, Laertes, and...
- Hamlet
Hamlet has fascinated audiences and readers for centuries,...
- Claudius
Claudius’s questions echo Hamlet’s earlier doubts about the...
- Ophelia
Hamlet used to be a triple threat: he had the eye of the...
- Laertes
It is only Claudius’s influence that convinces Laertes to...
- The Ghost
Horatio and the guards agree that the Ghost looks exactly...
- Related Links
The British Library: Hamlet and Revenge. This extensive...
- Act I: Scene I
Summary: Act III, scene i. Claudius and Gertrude discuss Hamlet’s behavior with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who say they have been unable to learn the cause of his melancholy. They tell the king and queen about Hamlet’s enthusiasm for the players. Encouraged, Gertrude and Claudius agree that they will see the play that evening.
- Summary: Act IV, Scene I
- Summary: Act IV, Scene II
- Analysis: Act IV, Scenes I–II
Frantic after her confrontation with Hamlet, Gertrude hurries to Claudius, who is conferring with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. She asks to speak to the king alone. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exit, she tells Claudius about her encounter with Hamlet. She says that he is as mad as the sea during a violent storm; she also tells Claudius that Ha...
Elsewhere in Elsinore, Hamlet has just finished disposing of Polonius’s body, commenting that the corpse has been “safely stowed” (IV.ii.1). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appear and ask what he has done with the body. Hamlet refuses to give them a straight answer, instead saying, “The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body” (IV.ii....
The short first scene of Act IV centers around Gertrude’s betrayal of her son, turning him in to the king after having promised to help him. While she does keep her promise not to reveal that Hamlet was only pretending to be insane, the immediate and frank way in which she tells Claudius about Hamlet’s behavior and his murder of Polonius implies th...
Hamlet ’s mother, Claudius ’s wife, and the Queen of Denmark. One of only two female characters in the play (along with Ophelia), Gertrude’s arc throughout the drama is perhaps most representative of the theme of women. Gertrude marries her brother-in-law, Claudius, very shortly after the death of her husband—an action perceived as ...
Poison, Corruption, Death. Summary. Analysis. Claudius and Gertrude warmly welcome Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two of Hamlet’s childhood friends, to Elsinore. Claudius explains that in light of Hamlet ’s recent “transformation” in the time since his father’s death, the purpose of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s visit is to spend ...
Gertrude is the Queen of Denmark and Hamlet’s mother. Two months after the death of her first husband, King Hamlet, she marries his brother, Claudius. Her marriage is a source of bitterness for ...
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Hamlet. Gertrude is, more so than any other character in the play, the antithesis of her son, Hamlet. Hamlet is a scholar and a philosopher, searching for life's most elusive answers. He cares nothing for this "mortal coil" and the vices to which man has become slave. Gertrude is shallow, and thinks only about her body and external pleasures.
