Gertrude's Dishonest Analysis

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Queen Gertrude is the wife of the late King Hamlet and the mother of their son Hamlet; she is a simple yet important character in a play called Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Gertrude finds herself in a dilemma after the sudden death of her husband King Hamlet. She hastily decides to marry the former king's brother Claudius. Hamlet becomes incredibly angry over this state of affairs, but, rather than halt her engagement Gertrude continues on. The queen requests that Hamlet stays in the kingdom rather return to his studies. She must continue to make attempts to cover up Hamlet's behavior, which eventually cause her death at the end. Critics offer various views on Gertrude asserting her selfishness in marrying Claudius despite Hamlet’s feeling and her premature urging of hamlet to stop mourning his father (Connor). They claim that she demonstrates her dishonesty through her many lies to both herself and others (Mabillard). Additionally, Gertrude is considered lustful because of her incestuous …show more content…

According to Mabillard, the queen is dishonest only this is arguably given with evidence which states these lies are initiated from fears of the consequences produced by her poor judgments. (Cantor) Queen Gertrude is a protective mother by nature, which is noticed by many, being the root of hasty decisions by Kind Claudius to harm Hamlet in secrecy. (Rosenblatt) Graf’s believes the queen shows her protective nature throughout the productions in simple gestures with the last breath being her final protective act (Greenwood) The queen biggest flaw of them all is her naive nature, resulting in her untimely death (Rosenberg) The initial critical views of Queen Gertrude being lustful, dishonest, and selfish change; with close examination, one see these characteristics are only misguided from the real Queen Gertrude who is fearful, protective,

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