An
exploration into the way Shakespeare presents Gertrude and Ophelia in Hamlet
It
seems at first that Gertrude and Ophelia are quite similar to each other in
relation to their position in the play – certainly in the eyes of Hamlet. He feels betrayed by both of them; Gertrude
for her hasty remarriage and Ophelia for her possible complicity in her
father’s plot to spy on him and the returning of his love tokens (his questions
‘Are you honest?’ and ‘Where’s your father?’ (III,1) although rather ambiguous,
reveal his suspicion of her).
Both
women are stronger than they appear, but become the victims of who they choose
to fall in love with. The poison
Claudius sets out for Hamlet kills Gertrude.
Ophelia is driven mad by Hamlet’s cruel treatment and murder of her
father, and kills herself. Both are
innocent victims, too; Ophelia is forced to compromise Hamlet and hand back
Hamlet’s love letters thus provoking his anger, and Gertrude had no idea that
Claudius had murdered old Hamlet (‘As kill a king?’ she repeats in evident
amazement when confronted by Hamlet in her closet in Act III, Scene 4).
Ophelia’s
significance in the play is defined by the way she is used to throw light on
Hamlet’s situation, and her own character is therefore not easy to elicit. When we are first introduced to her, we are
instantly aware of her dutiful and submissive role. Laertes advises her not to be too free with
her affections for Hamlet:
‘Weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure
open,’ (I,3) - advice she would have
done well to heed had it not perhaps come too late. Her subservience to both her father and
brother are merely one aspect of her portrayal by Shakespeare. A completely different interpretation of
Ophelia’s character can be construed from the sexual innuendo in her dialogue
with Hamlet at the play. Later too, in Act
IV Scene 5, conflicting interpretations of her character can be made – the
songs and sexual references are not the words of an innocent young girl. Her madness may have broken down her
inhibitions but her language cannot be simply explained. It seems Shakespeare created Ophelia to be a
pawn in the power struggle between her father, Claudius and Hamlet.
Ophelia
is by no means a weak person, however.
She is forced by her father and the times in which she lives, into a
position whereby she can do nothing to affect what is going on around her. Laertes gives her similar advice to Polonius, which makes us question
her ability to make the right decisions for herself, yet she is not so
repressed as to be incapable of responding vigorously to his pompous advice,
reminding him not to behave like a ‘puff’d and reckless libertine,’ who ‘the
primrose path of dalliance treads/And recks not his own rede’ (I,3). She also speaks up for Hamlet to her father
when questioned, declaring that he has behaved ‘In honourable fashion.’ She listens carefully and dutifully to
Polonius and Laertes’ advice but this does not mean she is going to live by
it. This advice is motivated by
self-interest, and perhaps Ophelia can see this.
Gertrude
appears to be even more obedient and dutiful than Ophelia. She accepted Claudius’ ascension to the
throne above Hamlet; she trusts him when he declares Hamlet mad, and generally
does whatever Claudius asks of her.
Although Claudius loves her, he uses her, just as Polonius uses
Ophelia. The difference is, however,
that Ophelia may have some awareness of when she is being manipulated. (She is present when Claudius and Polonius
plot to act as ‘lawful espials’ (III,1) to judge Hamlet’s reaction to her and
her complicity in this plot is suggested by her lying to Hamlet when he demands
‘Where is your father?’).
It
is only during the closet scene, when Hamlet actually accuses Gertrude of
murder (‘A bloody deed! – almost as bad, good mother/As kill la king and marry
with his brother’) that her genuine confusion leaves the audience in no doubt
of her innocence in that crime. The
timely appearance of the ghost of old Hamlet could also reinforce this belief
and direct the audience’s sympathy. The
question that must be asked is why the ghost chose to appear at the moment when
Hamlet seems almost capable of anything in his passion, if not for concern for
Gertrude. Should she have been an
accomplice in the murder, the ghost might be less likely to show concern for
her.
Gertrude’s
function in the play, therefore, is similar to Ophelia’s, in that she is also a
pawn in Claudius’ power struggle. But as
Hamlet’s mother, of course, her role is more complex and like Ophelia, it is
fraught with ambiguity.
When
we first see Gertrude in Act I, Scene 2, it is as Claudius’ wife, standing by
his side and apparently on his side. While Claudius, in his opening speech,
exhorts the court to celebrate his marriage to his ‘sometime sister’ Hamlet’s
dislike of him is absolutely clear.
Gertrude instantly sides with her husband in criticising Hamlet’s
excessive grief, telling him to ‘cast thy knighted colour off’. She urges him to ‘look like a friend on
Denmark’ (meaning Claudius) and to stop mourning his real father because ‘all
that lives must die’. Considering that
her first husband has been dead only two months, this seems insensitive to say
the least. One way of perceiving her is
therefore as a shallow woman with no real depth of feeling, as at this stage in
the play, this is how she is being presented to the audience.
Just
as Ophelia is used and deceived by Polonius, Claudius uses and deceives
Gertrude. Not only does he kill her
husband, convince her that her son is mad and so on, but he plots to have
Hamlet sent to England and executed without her knowledge. Until Hamlet leaves for England, Gertrude is
exactly the kind of wife that Claudius wants.
This is illustrated by her comment about the Queen in the dumb show,
‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’ (III,2). She seems to think that a wife should
obey her husband blindly at all times – and in her case this seems true; in a
tragic twist of irony the only time she disobeys Claudius (‘Gertrude, do not
drink’ (V,2)) she is killed.
If
Gertrude is to be accused of anything, it could be that she simply plays her
part too cleverly. Her ‘o’er-hasty
marriage’ following the sudden death of her husband could simply be a survival
instinct. If all men must die, all women
must get on as best they can! Being a
queen and dutiful wife is a role she clearly knows well. The ghost refers to her lustful nature when
describing his ‘most seeming virtuous queen’ and this could account for her
simple need to be desired by a man.
Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 2 seems to corroborate this view:
‘Why, she should hang on him/As if increase of appetite had grown/By what it
fed on’.
If
Gertrude plays her role as dutiful wife and Queen with ease, her role as
Hamlet’s mother causes her more difficulties.
Despite her first exchange with her son, there is no doubt she is a
caring mother. As Claudius explains to
Laertes when he demands justice for his father’s death, one reason he has not
had Hamlet punished is that ‘The Queen his mother/Lives almost by his looks’
(IV,7). Her diagnosis of her son’s
‘distemper’ is also more astute than is Polonius’ who wants to put it down to
unrequited love: ‘I doubt it is no other but the main,/His father’s death and
our o’er-hasty marriage’ (II,2) Gertrude
explains with the perception of an understanding mother.
It
is in the closet scene that the real depths of Gertrude’s character are
revealed. She is force to listen to her
son’s cruel rantings and accusations of incest (‘Your husband’s brother’s
wife’), witness the murder of Polonius, and is pushed to the point where she
has to beg Hamlet’s silence: ‘Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul;/And there
I see such black and grained spots/As will not leave their tinct’ (III,4) she
cries pitifully, leaving the audience in no doubt that she has been deeply
touched and filled with remorse. ‘O
Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain’ she tells him. Nevertheless she still feels pity for her
son and readily agrees to support his pretence at madness; ‘Be thou assur’d, if words be made of
breath,/and breath of life, I have no life to breathe/what thou hast said to
me.’ And it seems once she has given
her word, she remains faithful to it as there is indication that she fails to
keep this promise.
However
this newly revealed compassion is not at first evident in her subsequent scene
with Ophelia.
Previously
Gertrude has shown her approval of Ophelia’s relationship with Hamlet, yet
following his exile to England, her first instinct seems to be to avoid the
fatherless girl. ‘I will not speak with
her’ are her opening words in Act IV Scene 5.
When she sees Ophelia’s plight, however, she softens. In her aside just prior to Ophelia’s entrance
it seems that Gertrude’s unhappiness (her ‘sick soul’) has brought new insights
to her character. ‘Each toy seems
prologue to some great amiss’, Gertrude says, suggesting a new ability to see
how things are progressing. It seems
Shakespeare intended to allow Gertrude’s character to develop more fully from
this point. Her poignant description of
Ophelia’s death and her final farewell:
‘sweets
to the sweet; farewell!
Scattering flowers.
I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s
wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet
maid,
And not have strew’d thy grave’ (V,1)
reinforces
the compassionate, maternal side to her nature and leaves us in no doubt of her
sorrow at the death of the girl she had looked on as her future daughter.
In
the midst of her unhappiness, however, she has not dropped her role as dutiful
wife. When Laertes hears that his father
is dead, the queen hastens to make sure the wrong man, i.e. Claudius, is not
accused. But it is the role of mother,
not wife, that predominates in Gertrude’s final scene. She defies Claudius’ command not to drink
from the poisoned cup with a degree of dignity, and then effectively denounces
her husband with her dying breath. When he suggests she has merely fainted at
the sight of the blood:
‘No, no, the drink, the drink! O, My dear Hamlet!
The drink, the drink! I am poisoned!’ (V,2)
In
Gertrude and Ophelia therefore, Shakespeare has created two interesting and
complex characters, both victims of their own love. On stage they can be interpreted and played in many different
ways. However whereas Gertrude must be a
very satisfying role for an actor because her character is more fully developed
and her different facets easier to explain, Ophelia’s poses problems. Her character is more ephemeral; her fragile
mind symbolised by delicate flowers, such as the violets which ‘wither’d all
when my father died’ (IV,5) make her a more difficult character to know or analyse
with certainty.
The
full text of Hamlet is available free online at:
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