Gertrude and Claudius
Quick Summary
John Updike's novel Gertrude and Claudius explores the early relationship between Gertrude and Claudius, characters from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. In Shakespeare's tragedy, Gertrude is the queen of Denmark and Hamlet's mother. She hastily marries Claudius, her deceased husband's brother and murderer, shortly after the king's death. This remarriage is a primary source of Hamlet's distress and fuels his suspicion and anger. Gertrude's character is often depicted as weak-willed or as a woman torn between her maternal concern for Hamlet and her loyalty to Claudius. The novel Gertrude and Claudius offers a fictionalized account of their lives before the events of Hamlet.123
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