“Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend of Denmark
Do not for ever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.”
However, in his 1956 essay ‘Hamlet as Religious Drama’, H.D.F. Kitto recognized that,
“Gertrude, one of Shakespeare’s most tragic characters, is the
first… to be tainted by Claudius.”
This statement contradicts the initial, suspicious judgment we made regarding the Queen and, upon examining her seemingly harsh words to Hamlet instructing him to end his grieving, the use of the word “noble” in her description of the deceased king, demonstrates that she does still hold a great deal of respect for her late husband and we thus conclude that she is, as Kitto suggested, unaware of the murder plot and is in merely a victim of Claudius’ deceit.
This naivety is firmly established in our minds when, in IV.7, Claudius states that,
“…The Queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks…”
We are now forced to realise that Gertrude worships her son and would do nothing to hurt him, and that the two had a very close relationship before the death of Hamlet’s father.
This realization brings another motive for the resentment experienced by Hamlet towards his mother – maybe he is simply disturbed by the fact that his mother still possesses a degree of sexual attractiveness which disrupts his infantile view of her. Ernest Jones commented on the disturbance of his conventional image in his essay, ‘Hamlet and Oedipus’,
“[Hamlet] is distressed by the splitting of the mother image…into
two opposite pictures: one of a virginal Madonna, an inaccessible
saint towards whom all sexual approaches are unthinkable, and
the other of a sensual creature accessible to everyone”
This suggestion is given no verbal proof by Hamlet, but is merely expressed in his body language towards the Queen. For example, his speech is terse and bitter in the presence of Claudius, yet when alone with Gertrude in her chamber before his ‘madness’ consumes him, his tone is soft, loving and endearing.
The alternative object of Hamlet’s affection is Ophelia, daughter of Polonius. She also appears naïve, and willingly allows herself to be used as a pawn in a deceitful, three-man game of chess played by Polonius, Claudius and Hamlet.
Hamlet uses his affection for Ophelia as a guise for the cause of his ‘madness’. His actions appear to show that his unrequited love for her has caused his madness, and this reason is accepted by both Gertrude and Polonius, who says that
“[his love for Ophelia] hath made him mad”
He then experiences some feelings of guilt, “I am sorry,” as he has instructed his daughter to reject his advances on the grounds that he,
“Feared that [Hamlet] did but trifle and meant to wrack thee”
Ophelia, unlike the character of Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, has followed her father’s wishes instead of her heart,
“…as you did command,
I did repel his letters and denied
His access to me”
Polonius and Claudius appear to be ‘playing as a team’ in discovering the cause and subsequently curing Hamlet’s ‘madness’, yet Claudius’ reasons for uncovering the foundations of his insanity are somewhat more sinister than Polonius’. Claudius suspects that Hamlet knows of his “murderous act” and has developed a form of madness as a result of the discovery.
However in contrast to the theory that Ophelia is simply allowing herself to be used, another perspective would be that she is as concerned with his insanity, and as determined to return Hamlet to his ‘normal’ self as any other character in the play. This viewpoint is supported by her speech in III.1 when she, as Gertrude has, speaks of her affection for Hamlet’s former persona,
“O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,
Th’expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th’observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
Like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh,
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me
T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see!”
Despite the sorrow and regret with which these words are spoken, to quote Patrick Cruttwell’s essay ‘The Morality of Hamlet’,
“it is quite wrong to think that Ophelia’s unhappiness during
this dialogue is caused by her thinking the prince is behaving
cruelly… She is unhappy because she thinks he is mad”.
Indeed, Cruttwell’s hypothesis appears true. Ophelia speaks in a tone of mourning, as is she is grieving for the noble, amazing Prince who has fallen victim to a terrible ‘illness’. In the above twelve lines, we have discovered more of Hamlet’s characteristics and personality than we have been exposed to in Acts I and II.
Ophelia’s description contrasts sharply with the deceitful, murderous, vengeful Hamlet that we ‘know’ and, despite her grieving tone, Ophelia unknowingly remains close to the heart of the prince that she once adored. This is proven when Hamlet, in a ‘fit of sanity’ proclaims his undying love for Ophelia at her graveside, yet the King dismisses his claims as a simple bout of madness,
“Hamlet: I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
King: O, he is mad, Laertes”
Consequently, Hamlet’s deception is ultimately to his own expense, as everybody believes that his love is simply an illusion brought on by his insanity, rather than the truth that has been hidden by his pretence.
Shakespeare’s decision to bestow the announcement of Ophelia’s death onto Gertrude is exceptionally significant. She speaks in a sad tone, full of regret and remorse at the death, and uses a great deal of beautiful imagery within the announcement, highlighting not only the softer, caring side of Gertrude which we have thus far only observed when she is alone with Hamlet, but also the loss that the whole country suffered when she “fell into the weeping brook”, as this implies that everybody and everything will cry at the news of her death.
Although Ophelia drowned, the tranquil language used by Gertrude to describe the scene, for example “glassy stream” and “fantastic garlands” allows an audience to picture a peaceful death for a maiden who was happy and content in her final hours, as she was selecting flowers and constructing garlands, a task which, according to tradition, arouses feelings of joy and peace within women.
However, many people have picked up the detail into which Gertrude enters as an indication of her presence at the time of death. Certainly, it may be true that the tragic picture of Ophelia “clambering to hang” onto the riverbank and then the illustration of “her clothes spread wide and mermaid-like” was witnessed by the Queen as she genuinely seems to have held affection for the young maiden throughout the play and this imagery is most probably a sly technique by Shakespeare to rid his audience of any negative thought of Gertrude and thus to arouse much emotion and sympathy upon her eventual death.
Having examined the traits of both Ophelia and Gertrude in detail, and having also briefly discussed their relationship with each other, their contrasting relationships with Hamlet and their willing obedience towards the male characters, I have concluded that the women in Hamlet are weak, as neither of the women has the strength of character to take on their male companions to fight for what they believe in. The main examples of which are Ophelia denying Hamlet’s advances upon her father’s orders, despite her own wishes, and Gertrude allowing Claudius to send Hamlet away to England, regardless of the fact that she is his true parent and therefore should have the final say in his actions.
However, I do not agree with the view that either Gertrude or Ophelia are in any way morally suspect as they are naïve to all circumstances surrounding the activities in the Royal Court, and very traditionalist in their views that women are inferior to their male counterparts and should therefore agree and obey with their wishes and commands, despite contradictory personal feelings.
