How Does Gertrude Present Claudius's Ineffectiveness In Hamlet

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Claudius demonstrates his ineffectiveness from the beginning of the play. In the first act, Hamlet's manhood is questioned by Claudius when the two are speaking about the death of his father. He says that Hamlet should not be greiving, tell him his greif over his father " 'Tis unmanly grief." However, in the next act, Claudius seems to change his personality towards Hamlet. In scene two, Claudius and the Queen are concerned about the way Hamlet has been acting. So, Claudius contrasts his character in the from the first act to the second because he takes on the father figure. In doing so, the King has Guildenstern and Rosencrantz come up to check on Hamlet. It is interesting, however that despite his sense of full control over everything, in …show more content…
As another means of making sure that Hamlet will indeed die, Claudius puts poison in a cup of wine. He then offers it to Hamlet after he bested Laertes another time. Hamlet declined however, and as a strange turn of events, the cup ended in the hands of Hamlet's own mother and Claudius’ wife. Gertrude offers to drink upon the cup and as she raises the cup to do so, Claudius shouts for her to stop in protest of her ultimate death. Despite the scene that Claudius had made, Gertrude still proceeds to drink the poison unknowingly against Claudius’ will. Normally in such a circumstance, the person would have immediately put the cup down if such a fit is made but Gertrude continued to do so anyway against the will of her husband, the King. What is even more interesting is how he protested against her. In all other circumstances in the play, when Claudius needs something done, he speaks it in a tone similar to that of a usual conversation, but in this situation Gertrude resisted him despite his tone of urgency and panic. This proves that he cannot even control his wife anymore and that he has indeed fully become an ineffective

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