Gertrude's Guilt In Hamlet
At the end of Act III of Hamlet, Claudius has been sent reeling with guilt after seeing his own act of murder carried out on stage. The King begins to pray as his own repentance for his sins all the while he is being spied on by Hamlet who decides that rather than use this opportunity to fulfill his revenge, he should postpone it so that Claudius would not be able to enter heaven.
This brings him to his mother, Gertrude, who has just finished talking to Polonius in her room when her son comes barging in. While Hamlet is still frustrated and brimming with vengeful anger and Claudius is stricken with guilt, Gertrude is in fact quite calm and seems completely un-phased. I think Hamlet is upset that his mother seems to take the death of his father …show more content…
so lightly, and is frustrated that his mother isn’t suffering with guilt for the sin of marrying her husband’s murderer.
Hamlet is desperate for her to understand, and this is evidenced here when he speaks, “You go not till I set you up a glass/Where you may see the innermost part of you” (3.4.19).
The glass in this case being a figurative mirror. He speaks quite frankly to his mother by displaying his disgust and contempt for her actions. He rudely hurls insults at her, questioning her lust and her marriage vows, but doesn’t actually accuse her of adultery. Perhaps Hamlet wishes for his mother to understand for herself.
This is when the Ghost of Old Hamlet appears to chide Hamlet. The ghost had already asked that Hamlet not take his revenge out on his mother, and so he reminds him of what he is doing. “Do not forget. This visitation/Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose./But look, amazement on thy mother sits./Oh step between her and her fighting soul” (3.4.110).
This reminds Hamlet of his purpose and he changes his tone with his mother, but more to one of passive contempt. “Forgive me this my virtue/For in fatness of these pursey times/Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,/ Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good” (3.4.153) He is frustrated with his mother, but he is convinced that he must let it go. I like to think at the end of the play, when his mother dies at the sip of poison meant for her son, she sees how her own flaws have hurt her son, and in her final act Hamlet forgives her. I don’t see this so much in the play, but in Branagh’s Hamlet I felt like it was played that way in
the regretful expressions exchanged between Gertrude and Hamlet as she dies.
Considering Hamlet’s contempt for his mother’s lifestyle, I notice that Hamlet seems to speak quite condescendingly and rudely to the women in his life. Ashley Peterson had a good eye for this in her second reading response. “[Hamlet] feels Ophelia and his mother will do whatever their respective dominant male figure will tell them to do” (A2). I thought this was pretty apt because Hamlet rarely gives his mother or Ophelia respect as people. He uses his mother to vent out his anger and frustration as seen above, and is quite cruel to Ophelia and seems to be using her as a tool to portray his own feigned madness. How hypocritical that in Hamlet’s own insistence on pretending to be insane to further his plans, he is so quick to judge Ophelia who herself is only being manipulated. That Hamlet is ultimately killed at the hands of Ophelia’s brother almost seems to comment on the cyclical nature of revenge.
As an aside, Hamlet reminds me of Arrested Development, so interlaced with overlapping plot and irony that it really becomes hilarious. I greatly enjoyed reading this play as a comedy, but that was really just for fun.
This brings him to his mother, Gertrude, who has just finished talking to Polonius in her room when her son comes barging in. While Hamlet is still frustrated and brimming with vengeful anger and Claudius is stricken with guilt, Gertrude is in fact quite calm and seems completely un-phased. I think Hamlet is upset that his mother seems to take the death of his father …show more content…
so lightly, and is frustrated that his mother isn’t suffering with guilt for the sin of marrying her husband’s murderer.
Hamlet is desperate for her to understand, and this is evidenced here when he speaks, “You go not till I set you up a glass/Where you may see the innermost part of you” (3.4.19).
The glass in this case being a figurative mirror. He speaks quite frankly to his mother by displaying his disgust and contempt for her actions. He rudely hurls insults at her, questioning her lust and her marriage vows, but doesn’t actually accuse her of adultery. Perhaps Hamlet wishes for his mother to understand for herself.
This is when the Ghost of Old Hamlet appears to chide Hamlet. The ghost had already asked that Hamlet not take his revenge out on his mother, and so he reminds him of what he is doing. “Do not forget. This visitation/Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose./But look, amazement on thy mother sits./Oh step between her and her fighting soul” (3.4.110).
This reminds Hamlet of his purpose and he changes his tone with his mother, but more to one of passive contempt. “Forgive me this my virtue/For in fatness of these pursey times/Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,/ Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good” (3.4.153) He is frustrated with his mother, but he is convinced that he must let it go. I like to think at the end of the play, when his mother dies at the sip of poison meant for her son, she sees how her own flaws have hurt her son, and in her final act Hamlet forgives her. I don’t see this so much in the play, but in Branagh’s Hamlet I felt like it was played that way in
the regretful expressions exchanged between Gertrude and Hamlet as she dies.
Considering Hamlet’s contempt for his mother’s lifestyle, I notice that Hamlet seems to speak quite condescendingly and rudely to the women in his life. Ashley Peterson had a good eye for this in her second reading response. “[Hamlet] feels Ophelia and his mother will do whatever their respective dominant male figure will tell them to do” (A2). I thought this was pretty apt because Hamlet rarely gives his mother or Ophelia respect as people. He uses his mother to vent out his anger and frustration as seen above, and is quite cruel to Ophelia and seems to be using her as a tool to portray his own feigned madness. How hypocritical that in Hamlet’s own insistence on pretending to be insane to further his plans, he is so quick to judge Ophelia who herself is only being manipulated. That Hamlet is ultimately killed at the hands of Ophelia’s brother almost seems to comment on the cyclical nature of revenge.
As an aside, Hamlet reminds me of Arrested Development, so interlaced with overlapping plot and irony that it really becomes hilarious. I greatly enjoyed reading this play as a comedy, but that was really just for fun.