Gertrude is Hamlet's mother and Queen of Denmark. She was married to the murdered King Hamlet (represented by the Ghost in the play) and has subsequently wed Claudius, his brother.
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.
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.
It is not incestuous in terms of blood relations, given that Gertrude was Claudius's sister-in-law, not his actual sister. However, Leviticus states that widows should not marry the brothers of their deceased husbands, and that appears to be the rationale that Hamlet uses to call the marriage incestuous.
Claudius is the newly crowned King of Denmark and husband to Gertrude. He is Hamlet's uncle. Gertrude is Hamlet's mother and the queen. She married Claudius shortly after her husband died.
After her first husband is murdered, the new king decides to take her as his bride. Even if she was emotionally opposed to the pairing, Gertrude, a woman and royal only by marriage, would have almost no authority to reject the marriage to Claudius. Yet Hamlet still places the blame entirely upon Gertrude.
Gertrude is one of only two female characters in Hamlet, and her plotline is indicative of the play's exploration of women. As the Queen of Denmark, her safety and social rank are dependent upon her connection to a powerful man—a reality that leads to her swift marriage to Claudius following the death of her husband.
Claudius also implies that Gertrude's marriage to him has a political function, calling her “Th'imperial jointress to this warlike state” (1.2. 9). They married to show that the former king's death did not break Denmark; rather, the “jointress” and her new union have strengthened it.
Gertrude reveals no guilt in her marriage with Claudius after the recent murder of her husband, and Hamlet begins to show signs of jealousy towards Claudius. According to Hamlet, she scarcely mourned her husband's death before marrying Claudius.
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.
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.
In her defense, as a woman, Gertrude likely felt pressure to remarry, especially in a position as queen of Denmark. She cares deeply for Hamlet. Still, her loyalty lies most closely with Claudius, not Hamlet, as she defers to any decision made by Claudius on Hamlet's behalf.
Claudius uses the poison for his own selfish ambition and marries Old Hamlet's widow, Gertrude, making him the new King of Denmark.
King Claudius betrays Gertrude by indirectly killing her. He did not tell her that the cup she was going to drink from was poisoned, and he did not stop her either even though he knew. He also betrayed her in the sense that he planned to kill her son that he knew she loved dearly.
Even if Hamlet truly believes that Gertrude and Claudius's marriage is incestuous, then, what he really seems to disapprove of is their lack of respect and decorum surrounding his father's death—a lack of respect that Hamlet finds dishonorable.
It's not fear that keeps Hamlet from acting. Hamlet delays killing Claudius because Claudius represents Hamlet's innermost desires to sleep with his mother Gertrude.
This is very subtle and brief. 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. This is subtle.
In Sigmund Freud's concept, which Shakespeare was familiar with, it is proposed in Hamlet that he and his mother kiss because Hamlet no longer wants to allow his mother to sleep with Claudius.
Like Gertrude, Claudius seems to be very uncomfortable with the grief Hamlet displays. He tells Hamlet there is something wrong with him for not having gotten over his grief yet.
For Hamlet, his mother's marriage is as disgusting as incest, and he is sure that "it is not, nor it cannot come to good." However, perhaps because no one else sees it his way, he says "I must hold my tongue."
Answer and Explanation: In Act I of Hamlet, Claudius and Gertrude ask Hamlet to remain in Elsinore instead of returning to school. Having recently lost her husband, Gertrude wants Hamlet close by. Claudius, by contrast, wants Hamlet to stay in the castle so he can keep an eye on him.
Her “o'er hasty marriage” was therefore not only incestuous and immodest, but disloyal, unnatural, and unkind. The reckless disregard of her first loyalty as “her husband's brother's wife,/ And . . . my mother” (3.4.
Claudius seduces Gertrude before he murders King Hamlet to be sure that she will marry him. From the way Gertrude was responding to him, Claudius knows that she will marry him. Claudius is sure his plan will work and murders King Hamlet and marries Gertrude to become the new King and Queen.
As Hamlet outlines the actions that have already taken place, Gertrude seems to understand for the first time her complicity, a reaction that suggests she was completely innocent up to this point. Claudius has used her as a means of securing the crown on his head while gaining a lovely wife in the bargain.