Parent Child Relationships In Hamlet

And after all his shenanigans, Tom was tired. His mother and father walked him to his room and as Tom’s mother tucked him into bed, his father was already reaching for Tom’s favourite book… A scene like this resembles something out of a children’s book about an adventurous boy and his ever-wise and perfect parents that appear more angel than human with their absolutely flawless existence. In reality, parent-child relationships often do not play out in such a composed manner and can be endlessly complicated. The rich complexities of parent-child relationships are realistically portrayed in both Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, and Doerr’s ‘All The Light We Cannot See’, and are strong enough to match how parent-child relationships work in real life. …show more content…
Hamlet holds utmost contempt to his mother for remarrying so quickly after her husband’s death even though he was so good to her, for as Hamlet puts it, “So loving to my mother/ That he might not beteen the winds of heaven/Visit her face too roughly…And yet, within a month…married with my/uncle,/My father’s brother, but no more like my father/Than I to Hercules” (Hamlet 1.2.-144-146,149,155-158). Here, Hamlet not only talks about how wonderful his father was with his mother but how unworthy his uncle is. It is also revealed how he blames his mother for her remarriage and looks down at her for being weak, for as he says, “…frailty, thy name is woman!” (Hamlet 1.2.150). But as he says, “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue (Hamlet 1.2.164). Thus, despite Hamlet’s grievances, he pretends that there are not such hard feelings for his mother’s remarriage, and soon we understand that Hamlet is an introspective person who prefers to keep to himself until they bubble out of control and that he and his mother already had a distant relationship from …show more content…
For the majority of the play, it does not seem like Gertrude is a very ‘good’ mother and seems to have a strained relationship with her son. She often takes her husband, Claudius’ side over her son, until we see Gertrude’s last scene. In it, Gertrude holds a toast to her son’s victory in a fencing match and is about to drink from the poisoned glass when Claudius tells her not to. In perhaps Gertrude’s first rebellion, she says, “I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me” (Hamlet 5.2.318). Now, it is unclear whether Gertrude knew the drink was poisoned and drank it so her son would not drink it or whether she merely insisted on toasting her son because if she didn’t, it would mean she didn’t value his honour. Ignoring her reason, one thing is clear- Gertrude clearly valued her son more than she valued the opinion of her husband, and for a character who lived totally under the thumb of her husband, this was the highest rebellion Gertrude could have