Gertrude dies on-stage, accidentally poisoned by
She wilfully disobeys Claudius by drinking the poisoned wine. She dies with cries of 'the drink! the drink! I am poisoned' (5.2.
The King, the King to blame,” (V, II, 350-351): not only the poison killed Gertrude but his illogical plan caused the entire royal family to die. Claudius's own plan killed him because of his paranoid mind, which caused him to make thoughtless…
1 Answer. Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius because he thought that he was Claudius, listening in on he and his mother's private conversation behind the curtain.
Some see Ophelia's death as an accident; others see it as a suicide resulting from the accumulation of a series of unfortunate events: her rejection by her boyfriend, her father's murder, and her possible pregnancy.
Ophelia's final words are addressed to either Hamlet, or her father, or even herself and her lost innocence: “And will a not come again? / No, no, he is dead, / Go to thy death-bed, / He never will come again. / … / God a mercy on his soul. And of all Christian souls. God buy you.” Next, she drowns herself.
In this way, Ophelia's drowning, surrounded by flowers with her last breath in song, is her surrender to her overwhelming femininity. In an ironic twist, her watery suicide, which plunges her into the impersonal eternal female essence, works to remind the characters of her humanity and individuality.
Ophelia's Death
Perhaps the most tragic death in "Hamlet" is one the audience doesn't witness. Ophelia's death is reported by Gertrude: Hamlet's would-be bride falls from a tree and drowns in a brook. Whether or not her death was a suicide is the subject of much debate among Shakespearean scholars.
At the end of the play in Act 5, Scene 2, Hamlet dies when he is stabbed with the poisoned sword. While Laertes stabbed Hamlet, it was Claudius who poisoned the sword. Claudius plotted with Laertes to revenge the murder of Polonius and the death of Ophelia but really wanted Hamlet dead so he could continue to be king.
Synopsis: In Gertrude's room, Polonius hides behind a tapestry. Hamlet's entrance so alarms Gertrude that she cries out for help. Polonius echoes her cry, and Hamlet, thinking Polonius to be Claudius, stabs him to death.
Laertes selects the poisoned and sharpened rapier, and the two go at it. When Claudius offers Hamlet the poisoned goblet of wine, Hamlet refuses, and Gertrude picks up the cup instead. Toasting Hamlet, she drinks the poison, ensuring her eventual death.
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.
Maclise portrays an innocent Gertrude who apparently has no inkling of Claudius's guilt or even of the murder itself.
tragic flaw was no other than the innocent desire for reconcilement and her too human need to avoid conflict.
What does Gertrude's accidental death reveal about Claudius? That he is careless and does not carefully consider his plans before enacting them. That he truly loves Gertrude and cannot stand to see her suffer as a result of his sins.
Their feelings about grief
Gertrude Lines 68-73 Gertrude tells Hamlet that he should no longer wear black mourning clothes and that he should look happier. She tells him he should not keep his eye downward as if he were looking for his father in the dirt. She reminds him that all people must die.
His tragic flaw is 'procrastination'. His continuous awareness and doubt delays him in performing the needed. Hamlet finally kills Claudius but only after realizing that he is poisoned. His procrastination, his tragic flaw, leads him to his doom along with that of the other characters he targets.
Hamlet feigns madness, contemplates life and death, and seeks revenge. His uncle, fearing for his life, also devises plots to kill Hamlet. The play ends with a duel, during which the King, Queen, Hamlet's opponent and Hamlet himself are all killed.
The last words Hamlet speaks are to his friend Horatio: "The rest is silence." These words were crucial to audiences at the time because they provided a sense of ease in death and the afterlife. Hearing that Hamlet could now rest in peace for avenging his father's death meant he was no longer suffering.
The first major quote that suggests Hamlet's flaw of procrastination is, “Haste me to know't; that I, with wings as swift/ As meditation or the thoughts of love,/ May sweep to my revenge” (Hamlet, Act I: Scene v, 29-31). This quote is spoken by Hamlet to the Ghost of Hamlet's father.
It is evident that Hamlet loses his sanity in the play because of the loss of his father and the grief he felt for him, causing him to have delusions and see the ghost of his father, which drives Hamlet to avenge him by killing his uncle, Claudius.
For the Elizabethans, Hamlet was the prototype of melancholy male madness, associated with intellectual and imaginative genius; but Ophelia's affliction was erotomania, or love-madness.
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.
Bidding his sister, Ophelia, farewell, he cautions her against falling in love with Hamlet, who is, according to Laertes, too far above her by birth to be able to love her honorably. Since Hamlet is responsible not only for his own feelings but for his position in the state, it may be impossible for him to marry her.
Hamlet, wondering who has died, notices that the funeral rites seem “maimed,” indicating that the dead man or woman took his or her own life (V.i.242). He and Horatio hide as the procession approaches the grave. As Ophelia is laid in the earth, Hamlet realizes it is she who has died.