Despite what Hamlet considers her great age (she is at least 44), she still enjoys the physical pleasures of marriage.
About thirty years old at the start of the play, Hamlet is the son of Queen Gertrude and the late King Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king, Claudius.
Gertrude is a minor character in Hamlet, but one that of great importance. She is initially labeled as an “adulteress” and “incestuous” by the Ghost of the late king and presumably Hamlet too believed in these accusations.
Gertrude loves her son. At the beginning of the play, she could have shown more empathy for Hamlet, who just lost his father. Nevertheless, throughout the story, Gertrude continuously defends her son in front of Claudius. Her actions prove that she loves him.
Fortinbras, frequently referred to in the play, Hamlet, as “young” Fortinbras, is one of Shakespeare's most minor characters. He has no dramatic relevance and hardly appears in the play at all. However, he is an important idea in the play and has a major function in the meaning of it.
By this point, Ophelia would be well aware of her pregnancy, and well aware that she would soon begin to show outward signs of it.
Just a few moment before Hamlet laments over Yorick's skull, the Gravedigger informs us that he has been a grave-maker since “young Hamlet was born; he that's mad, and sent into England,” and a few lines later “I have been Sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.” So we know that Hamlet is 30 (and if we're interested, ...
The intimate mother-son relationship is revealed in the film primarily through the kisses that Hamlet and Gertrude exchange. This occurs once at the beginning of the film in a semi-close-up camera shot when the queen asks her son to stay at Elsinore.
There is an implied incestuous relationship between Hamlet and his mother in this film's interpretation of the play. They kiss in such a way that implies more than filial love and he even briefly mimes sexual intercourse at one point.
We can't know for sure if Gertrude was sleeping with Claudius while still married to Hamlet's father, though Hamlet and the Ghost imply that she was. Both Hamlet and the Ghost call Claudius “adulterate,” which means “corrupted by adultery.” The Ghost also calls Gertrude “seeming-virtuous” (I.
Gertrude is just a mother, trying to protect his son from being hurt. In the final scene of the play, Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine that Claudius has prepared for Hamlet. Even though Claudius tells Gertrude not to drink, Gertrude does it for his son.
“We first realize in Act I, Scene 2 that poor judgment is her major character flaw. As the mother of a grieving son, Gertrude should have been more sensitive to Hamlet's feelings. Instead, less than two months after King Hamlet's death, Gertrude remarries Claudius, her dead husband's own brother.”
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.
Although it isn't openly stated, it is implied that Ophelia is Hamlet's 'girlfriend': his betrothed, the woman he will marry. Like Hamlet, she is part of the royal court, and her father, Polonius, is a lord – so although she isn't royalty like Hamlet, she would be a suitable match for him in Danish society.
Indeed, Hamlet was written for a star Elizabethan and Jacobean actor, Richard Burbage, when he was 31 or 32 – and he continued to play the prince for the next couple of decades, points out Will Tosh, research fellow and lecturer at Shakespeare's Globe. Plus, he adds, Burbage started playing Lear only a few years later.
She is often portrayed as being 19 years old (like Kate Winslet in the 1996 Kenneth Branagh movie). She is certainly of an age where her father is probably beginning to think about marrying her off, which I think would probably be in the 16–19 range.
Instead, Gertrude's love for Claudius creates a thrilling twist to the closet scene in which he is revealed as a murderer. The final Act, in which she is clearly aware that the wine is poisoned, sees her sacrifice herself to save Hamlet.
Gertrude and Claudius marry each other while Hamlet is still grieving the death of his father. Even though he does not know the new king is the murderer, Hamlet is explicitly against the marriage for some reason, and he keeps accusing his mother of lust until she regrets her decision.
The Ghost all but accuses her of adultery and incest when he calls her new husband, Claudius, "that incestuous, that adulterate beast" (1.5. 49).
Gertrude shows as another prime example of a female that is submissive to the men in her life. Gertrude's love and obedience toward Claudius are shown throughout the play when she relentlessly stands by, supports, and obeys all of his requests.
Hamlet's love for his mother was the primary force that drove his life. Everything he did in some way revolved around his love for his mother. His love was unconditional in many ways, and at times it also became sexual. These sexual thoughts that ran thought his mind took charge of his emotion and ultimately his life.
It is very obvious throughout the play that Queen Gertrude and Claudius were having an affair, previous to King Hamlet's death. Therefore, their marriage, two months after her beloved husband's death, came as no surprise to anyone.
Hamlet's age
Then, a little later, he adds that "I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years." According to this logic, Hamlet must be thirty years old.
How Old Is Hamlet? Hamlet is described on several occasions as “young”; he is roughly the same age as Fortinbras, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern; he seems to be a little younger than Horatio and Laertes; he is a student at Wittenberg; he thinks and speaks like one in the midst of a humanistic education.
When she first speaks to Hamlet, Ophelia is a 10-year-old ragged tomboy tagging along after her brother, Laertes. A year later, Ophelia is accepted into Queen Gertrude's court ("Becoming a lady, I learned, was not easy"), and she grows into a beautiful, rather outspoken young woman with an interest in herbs.