Gertrude

Who Is Gertrude?

Gertrude is Queen of Denmark, widow of Old Hamlet and wife of Claudius. She is Hamlet’s mother, a woman caught between her loyalty to her son and her relationship with her new husband. She is also one of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic characters, a woman whose inner life is largely hidden from the audience, revealed only in fragments through dialogue with her son and the Ghost’s accusations.

Gertrude begins the play seemingly content, presiding over the court as Claudius’s new queen. She appears to have accepted the rapid transition from widowhood to remarriage with equanimity. She loves both her husband and her son, or so it appears. Yet beneath this apparent stability lies ambiguity. Did she know about Claudius’s crime? Was her marriage to him motivated by love or political necessity? How much agency did she exercise in her life, and how much was she subject to the will and designs of others?

What makes Gertrude fascinating is precisely this ambiguity. Unlike Hamlet, who explicitly states his madness is feigned, or Ophelia, whose descent into madness is unmistakable, or Claudius, whose soliloquy reveals his guilt, Gertrude’s inner consciousness remains largely opaque. We must infer her understanding of events from what she says and does, and the text permits multiple interpretations.

Psychology and Personality

Gertrude’s psychology is one of apparent passivity and hidden complexity. On the surface, she is the dutiful wife and concerned mother. She worries about Hamlet’s melancholy. She counsels him to look forward rather than dwelling on grief. She plays the role of queen with grace and dignity. Yet this apparent passivity masks a more complicated figure.

Gertrude’s most revealing moments come in her interactions with Hamlet. When he confronts her in her chamber, accusing her of infidelity and incest, her responses are alternately defensive and introspective. She claims she did not know that Claudius had murdered Old Hamlet, but she does not deny the peculiarity of her marriage. She seems genuinely distressed by Hamlet’s accusations, yet she also defends her marriage as an act of will, not merely complicity.

There is also a sensual dimension to Gertrude that the play hints at repeatedly. The Ghost accuses Claudius of having seduced her, of having appealed to her sexual desire. Hamlet is disgusted by his mother’s sexuality, describing her remarriage in visceral, angry terms. The play suggests that Gertrude is a woman who enjoys physical pleasure, who has sexual agency, and who is therefore contemned by her son for exercising that agency.

Gertrude also demonstrates political acumen. She participates in court proceedings, observes Hamlet’s behavior carefully, and seems to understand the stakes of the conflict between Hamlet and Claudius. Whether she is fully aware of Claudius’s attempts to have Hamlet killed remains ambiguous, but her intelligence should not be underestimated.

Character Arc

Gertrude’s arc is subtle but significant. She moves from apparent ignorance to dawning realization, from passive acceptance to a form of tragic understanding.

Initially, Gertrude seems unaware of the depth of Hamlet’s disturbance or the cause of it. She attributes his melancholy to grief over his father’s death and to the remarriage that has upset him. She offers comfort and counsel, urging him to accept what cannot be changed.

The first turning point comes during the confrontation in her chamber. Hamlet, in his anger, forces Gertrude to look at what he sees as the ugliness of her marriage. She begins to understand, at least partially, the depth of her son’s revulsion. Her response—“O Hamlet, speak no more! Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul”—suggests a moment of genuine self-awareness, a recognition that her son’s judgment of her is perhaps not entirely without foundation.

The second turning point is more ambiguous. When Hamlet kills Polonius behind the arras, the act reverberates through the remaining action. Gertrude becomes increasingly concerned for both Hamlet and Claudius, perhaps finally beginning to understand the precariousness of their position.

The final turning point is her death. Whether she drinks the poisoned wine deliberately, with knowledge of Claudius’s poison, or accidentally, believing it to be a gesture of reconciliation, is left deliberately ambiguous by Shakespeare. What matters is that in her final moment, Gertrude seems to understand that something is amiss. “The drink, the drink! I am poisoned!” she cries, and with her death, the tragedy becomes complete.

Key Relationships

With Old Hamlet: Gertrude’s marriage to Old Hamlet was presumably conventional and royal, though the Ghost’s emphasis on his love for her suggests genuine affection. Her remarriage so quickly after his death is presented by both Hamlet and the Ghost as a betrayal, yet Gertrude’s own feelings about Old Hamlet remain unclear. Did she love him? Did she resent him? The text does not say.

With Claudius: Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius is the central issue of the play’s first act. Hamlet sees it as incestuous and unnatural. The Ghost blames Claudius for seducing her. Yet Gertrude herself describes the marriage as a choice, an act of will, perhaps a practical political decision as well as an emotional one. Her affection for Claudius seems genuine, yet she is also capable of some independence from him—she speaks to Hamlet without always deferring to Claudius.

With Hamlet: This is the relationship that defines Gertrude’s role in the play. She loves her son, but she also stands between him and Claudius. She cannot fully understand Hamlet’s rage at her remarriage, and Hamlet cannot seem to forgive her sexuality. Their relationship is fraught with misunderstanding and unhealed wounds.

With Ophelia: Gertrude is Ophelia’s only female ally in a court full of men. Her understanding of Ophelia’s distress seems genuine, and she is genuinely grieved by Ophelia’s madness and death. In another narrative, these two might have formed a protective alliance, but circumstances do not permit it.

What to Talk About with Gertrude

Conversations with Gertrude on Novelium explore the complexities of female choice, marriage, and the demands placed on women:

On Her Marriage to Claudius: Why did she marry him so quickly? Did she suspect his role in Old Hamlet’s death? Was it love, political necessity, or something more complicated? What would she want Hamlet to understand about her choices?

On Sexuality and Age: Hamlet’s disgust at his mother’s sexuality is a central theme. Does Gertrude understand why her son is so revolted by her remarriage? How does she reckon with being judged for her sexual agency?

On Maternal Love and Conflict: How does Gertrude navigate loving Hamlet while also defending her own choices? What does she wish she could say to her son?

On Knowledge and Complicity: Did she know that Claudius killed Old Hamlet? At what point did she begin to suspect the truth? How does not knowing—or knowing and not acting—weigh on her conscience?

On Her Final Drink: In her final moments, was she aware that she was drinking poison? Did she deliberately drink it to protect Hamlet, or was it a tragic accident?

Why Gertrude Changes Readers

Gertrude changes readers because she is a female character whose inner life is never fully revealed. We must interpret her actions and words, and different readers come to different conclusions about her complicity, her knowledge, her agency, and her love.

For some readers, Gertrude is a tragic figure trapped by circumstance and the limitations placed on women of her time. She has few choices, and the ones she makes—remarrying quickly for political stability, not directly opposing Claudius—are rational responses to her position. From this perspective, her ultimate innocence of Claudius’s crime and her genuine concern for Hamlet make her worthy of sympathy.

For other readers, Gertrude’s passivity is more complicit. By not questioning the circumstances of Old Hamlet’s death more vigorously, by not opposing Claudius’s obvious threat to Hamlet, by not attempting to protect her son, she becomes complicit in the tragedy that unfolds. Her remarriage, regardless of her reasons, suggests an unseemly haste to abandon her previous husband’s memory.

What Gertrude does is force readers to confront their assumptions about female power, agency, and complicity. She is neither purely innocent nor purely guilty, neither purely sympathetic nor purely culpable. She is a woman trying to navigate an impossible situation, and the fact that different readers come to different conclusions about her speaks to Shakespeare’s genius in creating a character whose moral status is genuinely ambiguous.

Famous Quotes

“Frailty, thy name is woman!” - Hamlet’s accusation about his mother, though he does not say it to her directly; it represents his disgust at female sexuality.

“Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailed lids seek for thy noble father in the dust.” - Gertrude counseling Hamlet to move beyond grief, urging him toward acceptance.

“I must lose my name and title upon that; either I am utterly deceived, or the poison that was racked upon the point of Laertes’ sword will do its office.” - Gertrude, dying, finally understanding the truth of her situation.

“Tis meet that I permute with him. What does his title gain? A father’s curse might beat a wandering curse. O, I am fortune’s fool!” - Gertrude, perhaps reflecting on the costs of her choices.

“Nay, but, Hamlet, Hear me. My lord shall not lose my love. My ear shall not be barred of thy discourse.” - Gertrude, insisting on her right to maintain relationships with both her son and her husband.