Gertrude of Shakespeare’s Hamlet Essay -- Essays on Shakespeare Hamlet

The Gertrude of Shakespe ars settlement Is Gertrude, in the Shakespearean drama Hamlet, a bore? A killers accomplice? The perfect queen? A dumbie? This paper will suffice many questions concerning Claudius partner on the Danish throne. In her essay, Acts III and IV Problems of Text and Staging, Ruth Nevo explains the deleterious effect of Gertrudes behavior on her sons relationship with Ophelia His mother has predisposed him to believe in womens perfidy, has produced in him a revulsion from sex and the stratagems of sex he was unable to draw Ophelias face by his perusal she has refused his earn and denied him access now returns his gifts. What form of devious double-dealing shall he enquire? (49-50) Gertrude is indeed not the ideal mother. Lilly B. Campbell comments in Grief That Leads to Tragedy on faerie Gertrudes sinful state Shakespeares picture of the Queen is explained to us by Hamlets speech to her in her closet. at that place we see again the picture of sin as evi l willed by a reason perverted by passion, for so much Hamlet explains in his accusation of his mother You cannot call it love, for at your age The hey-day in the blood is tame, its humble, And waits upon the judgement and what judgement Would step from this to this? . . . O pity . . . And of the Queens 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. (97-98) Gunnar Bokland in Hamlet describes Gertrude... ...hamlet/other/jorg-hamlet.html Nevo, Ruth. Acts III and IV Problems of Text and Staging. modern Critical Interpretations Hamlet. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Rpt. from Tragic Form in Shakespeare. N.p. Princeton University Press, 1972. Pitt, Angela. Women in Shakespeares Tragedies. Readings on Th e Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint of Shakespeares Women. N.p. n.p., 1981. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts implant of Technology. 1995. http//www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos. Smith, Rebecca. Gertrude Scheming Adulteress or love Mother? Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. of Hamlet A Users Guide. New York Limelight Editions, 1996.