Hamlet wants to kill Claudius throughout the play. He succeeded. Claudius is the guiltiest character in the play. Old “Claude” did murder his brother (the king of Denmark) and marry his wife (Gertrude) shortly after. Gertrude isn’t all squeaky-clean herself, though; she tries to put on that mask. Gertrude died accidentally in the end, I think Shakespeare wanted to show that Gertrude was at fault and was guilty of betraying her loyalty to her husband King Hamlet.
Is Gertrude guiltless? That’s a good question. Hamlet evidently thought so in the bedroom scene when he gave her a nice talking to. He took his anger a little too far, and that was when the ghost appeared. The ghost gave Ham specific directions to leave her alone; “leave her to heaven” were his
Gertrude died at the end of the play, the irony of that is the ghost said “leave her to heaven” and that’s exactly what happened. If she hadn’t died and the ghost did not tell Hamlet to leave her alone, I think Hamlet would’ve taken care of her. By that I mean he would’ve killed her. The bedroom scene is a very intense scene and it shows Hamlet fury and hate for his mother’s actions. His mother’s haste marriage drove him to the edge of insanity and he would’ve taken her out at that moment if it weren’t for the ghost. In that scene I compare the ghost to a referee regulating a boxing match. When Hamlet gets out of control he steps in. In my opinion I think that Gertrude is the “driving factor” of all of the conflict that Hamlet is going through, so I think th
Example Essays Home
