Though Claudius professes love and admiration for Gertrude, he never confides to anyone the extent of their relationship. Gertrude describes her love for Hamlet when she asks him not to return to Wittenberg.
Gertrude and Claudius. Claudius is the brother of Old Hamlet and Hamlet's uncle. After his brother's death, he married Gertrude and became the King of Denmark and criticises Hamlet for being too upset over the death of his father.
She wilfully disobeys Claudius by drinking the poisoned wine. She dies with cries of 'the drink! the drink! I am poisoned' (5.2. 264), and in so doing identifies Claudius as her killer.
Hamlet feels betrayed and irritated by his mother. He is upset because she married his late father's brother Claudius. Hamlet thinks that remarriage in such circumstances is unacceptable. Through Hamlet's disappointment with his mother, his anger is increased towards Claudius.
Gertrude's marriage to Claudius took away Hamlet's chance to rule Denmark, but only temporarily. Claudius says to Hamlet when he tries to console him, “You are the most immediate to our throne” (1.2. 313).
Though Claudius professes love and admiration for Gertrude, he never confides to anyone the extent of their relationship. Gertrude describes her love for Hamlet when she asks him not to return to Wittenberg.
Claudius's love for Gertrude may be sincere, but it also seems likely that he married her as a strategic move, to help him win the throne away from Hamlet after the death of the king.
Hamlet delays killing Claudius because Claudius represents Hamlet's innermost desires to sleep with his mother Gertrude.
But other interpretations, in both stage productions and paintings, suggest Gertrude's guilty knowledge of the murder, and Hamlet suspects her as well as Claudius; Hamlet's "mousetrap" therefore sets out to capture the conscience of a king and a queen.
Gertrude's Loyalty to Hamlet
Despite all that happens, Gertrude chooses to remain loyal to Hamlet. At the end of act three, he reveals to Gertrude that he is only mad in craft, not for real, and he askes her not to sleep with Claudius anymore.
Putting Gertrude, The Queen in total deception was the kind of manipulation Claudius used to get closer to his power. As a strategic move to help him seize the throne away from Hamlet after the death of the King, he decided to marry Gertrude.
He provided a poisoned cup with which Gertrude drank to her death. Claudius manipulated Gertrude to death, and with loving manipulation to her son. Hamlet felt depressed and lonely, at times wanting to give up and not fight the battle.
As Laertes flees the room in agony, Claudius follows, not to console or even to join him in mourning but because, as he tells Gertrude, it was so difficult to appease his anger in the first place. Claudius does not have time to worry about the victims of tragedy—he is too busy dealing with threats to his own power.
Even though Hamlet lashes out at her with all the rage he can muster, Gertrude remains faithful to him, protecting him fron the King. And, although her love for Claudius is wrong by moral standards, she is now his queen, and remains loyal to him.
Gertrude is seems to be a shallow woman in some ways yet King Hamlet, Hamlet and King Claudius are all devoted to her. She lies but her lies are to protect her love ones; the way she lied to King Claudius telling him that Hamlet is deeply saddened for killing Polonius.
Gertrude is controlled by Claudius. He manipulates her opinion of what is best for Hamlet. This shows Gertrude's inability to think for herself. For example, Hamlet wants to go back to school in Wittenberg after he discovers the truth about his father's death.
Laertes must have been clued in to Ophelia's pregnancy. Polonius inadvertently admits to such a claim. Polonius's knowledge is revealed when Hamlet discloses that he knows Ophelia, his lady love might be pregnant. Check out the words that Hamlet uses when he confronts Polonious.
He urges her as well not to reveal to Claudius that his madness has been an act. Gertrude, still shaken from Hamlet's furious condemnation of her, agrees to keep his secret.
Claudius can also be sensitive and gentle. He is genuinely sorry for Polonius' death, and he truly loves Gertrude. He must kill Hamlet, but he refuses to do so with his own hand for Gertrude's sake. He also sincerely likes Ophelia, and treats her with the kindness that she should receive from her great love, Hamlet.
Gertrude and Claudius encourage him to cease grieving and to get on with life. Gertrude asks Hamlet why he seems so particularly affected by his father's death, and Hamlet snaps at her that, unlike his mother and her husband, he has no pretenses.
Analysis: Gertrude and Hamlet were both under the impression that Claudius was sending Hamlet away to protect him from any harm he may face after the murder of Polonius. However, since Claudius was actually sending him away to have him murdered, he lies to both Gertrude and Hamlet.
Gertrude lies to the king by telling him that Hamlet killed Polonius in a mad rage, which he now regrets, and Claudius lies to her by saying that his love for Hamlet prevented him from restraining the Prince/ horses/ guards.
Gertrude and Ophelia live in a patriarchal society and are considered to be frail and weak-minded. This enables their being manipulated and exploited. Soon after the death of her husband, Gertrude is seduced into marrying her brother-in-law, Claudius, an act that earns the anger of her son, Hamlet.
Gertrude is thoughtful and sensitive in her attempts to intervene. She is not simply an unwitting victim of her circumstance, as some critics would have it. Gertrude is wholly ignorant of Caludius' successful plot against her first husband and equally oblivious of Hamlet's protectively possessive feelings towards her.