To know or not to know-that is the question: .
Whether Gertrude is an important character in the play or not,.
What is the reason that Shakespeare includes her in the play?.
Is to be determined in this essay. To have fun, to sleep-.
No more-until this question is answered.
.
Gertrude is one of the main Characters in the play Hamlet. She is the Queen and mother of the noble Hamlet. Gertrude must be in middle age, considering that her son is at least thirty years old. She has had a long experience as queen before she marries Claudius and is always dignified, courtly, courteous, and poised when in the public eye. She is of an affectionate nature, deeply loving her son Hamlet. When we think of Gertrude a few ideas come to mind: Is she really that ignorant as to what is being planed and plotted against her son Hamlet throughout the play? Also, does she have any part in the poisoning of King Hamlet, her late Husband? As the play proceeds we are given many hints that lead us to believe that that Gertrude has no idea of what is being plotted against her son, and that she had no part in the killing of her husband but it is only fully apparent to the reader in act 5.
At the beginning of the play we see Hamlet very disturbed by the death of his father. He does not understand how his mother could marry his uncle so soon after his father's death "but two months dead-nay, not so much, not two." (Act I, sc II, l. 142) When he meets the ghost and the ghost tells him the entire story of what really happened: Claudius murdered King Hamlet. Put both the death and the early marriage together and this leads us to be extremely suspicious of Gertrude. Right off the bat, Gertrude does not seem to know anything of it and is always trying to explain to her son that it will be ok without the king "Do not forever with thy vailed lids/seek for thy noble father in the dust/thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die/Passing through nature's eternity/" (act I, sc II, l.
