Queen Gertrude In Shakespeare's Hamlet

Although much has changed in the way that people have read, viewed, and understood literature in the past 400 years, it often seems as if many ideologies have stayed stagnant or sluggish. The world of literary criticism has gone through plenty of changes, switching constantly as the philosophies and cultural mannerisms of the peoples and times change. However, through all of these changes, one thing has seemingly remained the same. The character of Queen Gertrude in Shakespeare's Hamlet is commonly misread and misunderstood as malevolent for her romantic involvement with her husband’s brother and murderer after his death. Gertrude's character is analyzed as a sensual being who, overcome by her overwhelming libido, quickly remarries to Claudius, gaining her son’s resentment and the overall representation of a shallow, one-dimensional woman. This is a near universal understanding of Gertrude, which does not seem to have changed regardless of the time period or culture surrounding the analysis. What stands out as particularly strange about the abhorred interpretation of Gertrude is the fact that current readers lack the social and political understanding of the …show more content…
Claudius would treat her as an accomplice, confiding in her, but he does not do so. Moreover, if that were true, it would have not only been claimed by the Ghost, but it would have been the foremost on Hamlet's mind. But when Hamlet confronts Gertrude in her closet and announces all her crimes, he does not imply even once that she has committed adultery. Instead, attention is drawn to the Ghost's complaint that he was "Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch'd" (I.v.75), which is later echoed by Claudius's "My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen" (III.iii.55), which may show the sequence the pre-play events