Character Analysis: Gertrude

1. "Do not forever with thy vailèd lids seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ’tis common. All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity." (I.2.70-74)

The Queen, though being against the feelings of her own son and not helping to comfort him at all, has a very good point in this quote. Life is brief, and this is something that seems to not get until the very end of the play.

2. "O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain." (III.4.156)

Hamlet is condemning her mother for not only marrying her husband's brother, but for marrying her husband's killer as well. She is torn between Hamlet and her own desires. She longs to be with Hamlet and to make him happy; however, she also loves to still have a king at her side while enjoying the sexual act that comes with it.

3. "Mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier. In his lawless fit behind the arras hearing something stir, Whips out his rapier, cries 'A rat, a rat!' and in this brainish apprehension kills the unseen good old man." (IV.1.7-12)

The Queen is now telling her husbad, Claudius, how Hamlet yelled at her and how he killed Polonius, even after Hamlet had specifically told her not to tell Claudius anything that he (Hamlet) said to her. She decided to tell her husband anyway, and therefore, she decided her own lusts and desires over her own son.

4. "To my sick soul (as sin's true nature is) each toy seems prologue to some great amiss. So full of artless jealousy is guilt it spills itself in fearing to be spilt." (IV.5.17-20)

Gertrude is beginning to see how sin is a sickness and how it will give someone away on its own even when that someone, Gertrude in this instance, is trying so hard to act normal even in her sin. She has sinned, and she knows it. She chose her flesh above her own flesh and blood, Hamlet.

5. "He's fat, and scant of breath. Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet." (V.2.287-289)

Even to the end, Gertrude is trying to justify her son by still treating her son with kindness, even though she has betrayed him continuously. She dies still in her sin, like many others in the play.