“With which she followed my poor father’s body, like Niobe,

all tears-why she, (even she) (O God, a beast that wants discourse

“He will come straight. Look you lay home to him. Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with and that your grace hath screened and stood between much heat and him. I’ll silence me even here. Pray you, be round (with him.” (III, iv, 1-7)

In this quote Polonius is convincing Gertrude to try and uncover the genuine motive of Hamlet’s erratic behaviour. Gertrude agrees, unaware of Claudius and Polonius’ actual intentions. When Hamlet enters he tries to urge his mother to repent choosing Claudius over his own father. More specifically, he repeatedly demands that she avoid Claudius's bed and tells her not to let Claudius arouse her by fondling her neck. Yet again, she is being influenced and told what to do, this time by Hamlet. Sigmund Freud wrote that Hamlet harbors an unconscious desire to sexually enjoy his mother. Freud maintained that all men unconsciously desire their mothers in this way, and he called this the "Oedipus Complex," after the character in Sophocles' play who unwittingly murders his father and has several children by his own mother. Freud says that while Oedipus actually enacts this fantasy, Hamlet only betrays the unconscious desire to do so. Hamlet is thus a characteristically modern person, because he has repressed desires. Though Gertrude's speech in this scene is largely limited to brief reactions to Hamlet's lengthy denunciations of her, it is quite a revealing look at her character. As the scene progresses, Gertrude goes through several states of feeling: she is haughty and accusatory at the beginning, then afraid that Hamlet will hurt her, shocked and upset when Hamlet kills Polonius, overwhelmed by fear and panic as Hamlet accosts her, and disbelieving when Hamlet sees the ghost. As the scene progresses, her resistance is weakened by Hamlet's condemnation of her behavior. Gertrude says, “O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain,” she continues, “What shall I do?.” (III, iv, 177, 202) This quote symbolizes the queen’s surrender to Hamlet’s strong emotio

Some topics in this essay:
Hamlet Gertrude, Laertes Ophelia, Freud Oedipus, Prince Hamlet’s, Claudius Polonius, Gertrude Ophelia, William Shakespeare’s, Claudius Polonius’, , Ophelia Hamlet, lack respect, female characters, male characters, hamlet male characters, played male figures, played male, role play, scene progresses, gertrude ophelia, represented figures, deceitful power-game, deceitful power-game played, power-game played male, power-game played, status gender drive,