Gertrude
Who is Gertrude in William Shakespeareâs play Hamlet?
What is Gertrudeâs main concern in Acts I and II?
How does Gertrude react to the play within the play, The Mousetrap, in Act III?
What is Gertrudeâs role in the closet scene (Act III, scene 4)?
How does Gertrude die in the play?
Gertrude, queen of Denmark and mother of Hamlet in William Shakespeareâs play Hamlet. She is married to Claudius, her deceased husbandâs brother and murderer. The play is a tragedy in five acts, written about 1599â1601 and published in a quarto edition in 1603 from an unauthorized text, with reference to an earlier play. The First Folio version was taken from a second quarto of 1604 that was based on Shakespeareâs own papers with some annotations by the bookkeeper. Gertrude has been portrayed as a weak-willed woman easily beguiled by a crafty Claudius as well as a lady who willfully gave in to her passion and hastily remarried after her husbandâs death, much to the chagrin of the young Prince Hamlet.
Role in Hamlet
The queen mother (Acts I & II)
Hamletâs invective, âFrailty, thy name is woman!â paints Gertrude as a fickle, weak woman.
Gertrude is introduced in the second scene of Act I by her new husband, Claudius, as the âimperial jointress to this warlike state.â Her remarriage within a month of her first husbandâs death has ensured her regal position as queen but stoked controversy among her subjects and sowed discontent in Prince Hamlet. Gertrudeâs chief concern is her sonâs troubled state of mind, which is clouded by his prolonged mourning for the late King Hamlet. Her maternal appeal to him to âcast thy nighted colour offâ places her at odds with Hamlet, who believes his motherâs grief has dissipated too soon. Gertrude, however, persists in trying to soften his misery and seeks reconciliation. She succeeds in convincing Hamlet to stay in Denmark in accordance with Claudiusâs wishes and to not return to university in Wittenberg, but the prince seethes within. He feels that even a âbeastâ devoid of logic and reason would have grieved for the late king longer than Gertrude has.
In Act II Gertrudeâs distress about Hamlet has not abated. She aligns with Claudiusâs plan to entrust Hamletâs friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to find out what is troubling the prince. Aware that her sonâs mood and behavior have changed, Gertrude wants the two friends to cheer up the prince and get to the root of his seemingly insurmountable sorrow. In this way, Gertrude demonstrates intuition, remarking that Hamletâs behavior springs from âhis fatherâs death and our oâerhasty marriage.â However, when counselor Polonius suggests the theory that Hamlet is mad for Poloniusâs daughter Opheliaâs love, the queen feels âit may be, very like.â
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Moral turmoil (Act III)
In the third act Gertrudeâs role deepens. She meets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern briefly and asks about Hamletâs condition. The friends inform her that Hamlet, who had received them well, has found a distraction in the form of a play that a group of actors are to stage at the palace. In the play, called The Mousetrap, Hamlet has included a scene that mimics the circumstances of the late kingâs murder, with the hope that Claudius and Gertrude will react in a manner that will indicate their involvement in the regicide. The queen watches the performance but remains unperturbed, while Claudiusâs conscience betrays him. Soon, Guildenstern brings word to Hamlet that the queen, stricken by her husbandâs reaction to the play, has requested that the prince meet with her.
The queenâs pivotal moment comes in the famous closet scene (Act III, scene 4). While Gertrude waits for Hamlet, Polonius hides behind a tapestry in her chamber. In accordance with Gertrudeâs plan, he intends to eavesdrop on the conversation to understand why Hamlet has been behaving erratically. However, Hamlet arrives in a confrontational mood, and it forebodes trouble. When Gertrude tells him that he has his âfather much offended,â meaning Hamletâs demeanor has annoyed Claudius, Hamlet twists her words to say that it is Gertrudeâs actions that have offended his true father, the late king. When Hamlet forcibly stops his mother from leaving the chamber, the terrified queen, assuming he wants to kill her, calls out for help. Clueless about what is transpiring in the room, Polonius shouts from his hiding spot, culminating in his accidental murder by Hamlet, who thrusts a sword through the tapestry, suspecting that the king is spying on them.
Gertrude is shaken by this ârash and bloody deed,â but an unfazed Hamlet continues spewing invectives at her, accusing her of lust and betrayal. The queen admits that her sonâs words have cut into her like âdaggers,â baring her soul and exposing âblackâŠspotsâ within. However, she appears genuinely surprised when Hamlet mentions the regicide, pausing to ask, âAs kill a king?â In a scene fraught with emotional turmoil, Gertrude is even more appalled to see Hamlet, with a vacant look in his eyes, conversing with what appears to her as empty space. She questions her sonâs sanity, but Hamlet convinces her that he is speaking with his dead fatherâs ghost. Hamlet also explains that he is feigning madness, and on his insistence Gertrude vows not to reveal this to Claudius.
Poisoned by mistake (Acts IV & V)
It falls on Gertrude to report Poloniusâs death to Claudius. She describes Hamlet as âMad as the sea and wind when both contend / Which is the mightierâ and explains that he has killed the counselor in a âlawless fit.â When Poloniusâs daughter, Ophelia, stricken by grief over her fatherâs death, descends into madness, Gertrude is compassionate yet remains helpless as the young womanâs mind unravels. Later, when Opheliaâs brother, Laertes, storms in to demand justice, Gertrude remains by her husbandâs side, trying to calm the enraged young man. Unfortunately, she is once again the bearer of tragic news, announcing to Laertes and the court that Ophelia has drowned, describing the loss in a haunting lyrical passage:
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There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clambâring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook.
Genuinely aggrieved by Opheliaâs death, Gertrude laments having to scatter flowers on Opheliaâs grave when she had once pictured bedecking the young woman in them as Hamletâs bride. Hamlet and Laertes quarrel bitterly at the graveyard while the queen tries to pacify them, again citing Hamletâs madness to shield the prince. Claudius, however, chooses to fan Laertesâs anger, plotting to have Hamlet killed in a duel against Laertes with a poisoned sword. During the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes, Gertrude gently wipes Hamletâs brow and drinks to his health, unaware that she is drinking from a poisoned cup that Claudius had prepared for Hamlet. Realizing her end is here, she warns her son, âO my dear Hamlet! / The drink, the drink! I am poisonâd.â
Character analysis: Frail woman or political player?
- In the 1948 film, directed by Laurence Olivier, Eileen Herlie played Gertrude.
- In the 1990 Franco Zeffirelli directorial, Glenn Close performed the queenâs part.
- Julie Christie portrayed the queen in the 1996 film, directed by Kenneth Branagh.
- Actress Sheeba Chaddha was cast in the role of Gertrude in the Aneil Karia directorial in 2025.
- John Updikeâs novel Gertrude and Claudius (2000) offers conjectures on the early relationship between Gertrude and Claudius.
- Margaret Atwoodâs short story âGertrude Talks Backâ (1992) reinterprets the closet scene.
- Howard Barkerâs 2002 play GertrudeâThe Cry focuses on the queenâs character through the lens of a womanâs perspective.
Gertrude, who plays a secondary role in Hamlet, never leading the action nor taking center stage, remains an ambiguous character, with critics continuing to debate her motives, loyalties, strength, and moral compass. She has a dual roleâthat of a mother who is deeply concerned about her son and of a queen bound to her husband, and these roles often clash. As the royal consort, she remains largely in Claudiusâs shadow, supporting and echoing her husband and urging Hamlet to reconcile with him and stay in Denmark.
Some critics view her as little more than a âpuppet,â pointing to her passivity, submissiveness, and dependance, with her reliance on Polonius also cited as evidence of both political and personal subordination. Yet she shows independence when choosing to marry Claudius and later hiding Hamletâs apparent madness from her husband, excusing her sonâs actions. But when Laertes threatens the king over Poloniusâs death, she is quick to defend him, almost unwittingly guiding the blame to Hamlet. Thus, she constantly attempts to strike a balance between the two sides, acting as an uneasy intermediary between Claudius and Hamlet and always divided between them.
Although it is generally agreed that Gertrude is not complicit in Old Hamletâs murder, the extent of her moral laxity and ethical lapses has been debated. Her hasty marriage is largely seen as born out of passion and lust, and her guilt lies in desire rather than in assassination. Hamletâs bitter condemnation during the closet scene forces her to recognize the sordidness of her incestuous union (widow remarriage would have been considered improper in Elizabethan times) with Claudius, and she is remorseful.
The common verdict of critics is that she has been unfaithful to Old Hamlet and was likely involved in an adulterous relationship with Claudius while her first husband was still alive. Yet others point out that in Shakespeareâs times, the term adultery may not have meant a prior affair or infidelity but the incestuous nature of her present marriage. To others, her marriage appears to be a politically motivated choice, necessary for national stability and her own securityââa marriage of convenienceâ rather than of love, as author and professor John W. Draper points out in his book The Hamlet of Shakespeareâs Audience (1938). In being an âimperial jointress,â she may have the legal right to the kingdom if she is widowed, which would indicate that Gertrude has more power than is commonly assumed.
Whatever the nature of her relationship with Claudius, Gertrude exhibits strong maternal instincts as well as a capacity for kindness. Even after being chastened by Hamlet, she shields him from the king. She is empathetic toward Ophelia, though her passivity prevents her from offering comfort while the young woman lives, and she breaks down upon learning of Opheliaâs death. In the end, Gertrude is redeemed by her tragic death, when her maternal devotion overcomes her passivity as she warns Hamlet and affirms her loyalty to him.