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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 4.2.97: Top | Help

No.

I think that whether she was "in on" the murder of Hamlet the Elder or not she is not simply a bystander. She married his brother.

According to a plethora of morality codes this was incest - a MAJOR offense to God. Hamlet surmises that it was her lust that led her to marry Claudius and condemns her for that before he even sees the ghost. Look at 1.2.- "O that this too, too sullied (or solid, depending)flesh would melt..."

So Gertrude, first by merely being a woman (identified with sex, wickendness and sin) and therefore lusting, and second of all acting on that lust by thirdly, entering into an incestuous marriage with Claudius, is NOT an innocent by-stander by a major contributor to the "rotten" state of Denmark.

Posted by Lillith on April 19, 1997 at 07:54:31
 In Reply to "Was Gertrude an innocent bystander in Hamlet???" posted by L Bess on April 18, 1997 at 14:22:35


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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries From Genuinely Interested Students 4.2.97: Top | Help