Gertrude's motivation for removing Hamlet from the line of inheritance could be a desire for the position of queen regnant instead of the potentially less-powerful post as queen mother if her son ascended the throne immediately after her first husband's death.
In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Gertrude is Hamlet's mother and Queen of Denmark. Her relationship with Hamlet is somewhat turbulent, since he resents her marrying her husband's brother Claudius after he murdered the king (young Hamlet's father, King Hamlet).
Gertrude has become the synonym of power. Her every 'cry' is her wish to have power- may be sexual, political or anything. To be in the centre is her desire. She manipulates everyone through her sensuality.
Gertrude's Loyalty to Hamlet
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.
Gertrude describes her love for Hamlet when she asks him not to return to Wittenberg. When she shares with Ophelia her hope that the young woman would have married her Hamlet, she divulges her wish for his happiness. However, she never declares any kind of emotion for Claudius, either positive or negative.
But other interpretations, in both stage productions and paintings, suggest Gertrude's guilty knowledge of the murder, and Hamlet suspects her as well as Claudius; Hamlet's "mousetrap" therefore sets out to capture the conscience of a king and a queen.
Hamlet delays killing Claudius because Claudius represents Hamlet's innermost desires to sleep with his mother Gertrude.
In Laurence Olivier's film adaptation of Hamlet, Gertrude drinks knowingly, presumably to save her son from certain death. If she drinks on purpose, then she's the self-sacrificing mother Hamlet has always wanted her to be.
Manipulation exists throughout Hamlet from the prince acting mad to Claudius killing Gertrude. Claudius manipulated Hamlet by convincing Laertes to duel him a poisoned battle. He provided a poisoned cup with which Gertrude drank to her death.
He urges her as well not to reveal to Claudius that his madness has been an act. Gertrude, still shaken from Hamlet's furious condemnation of her, agrees to keep his secret.
Other scholars, like Pragati Das in “Shakespeare's Representation of Women in his Tragedies,” agree that Gertrude is not murderous, but simply selfish, shallow, and addicted to pleasure.
Gertrude decides that maybe she should become a nun, so that she can live as a better woman. And if she does decide to take the vows, she'll leave her son with Absalom's young fiancée.
Even the ghost of King Hamlet himself did not implicate Gertrude in the murder, but only asked Hamlet to “leave her to heaven and the pangs of her own conscience.” Queen Gertrude's lack of action and critical thinking prove her guilty not of King Hamlet's death, but indirectly guilty of each subsequent death within the ...
Gertrude is wholly ignorant of Caludius' successful plot against her first husband and equally oblivious of Hamlet's protectively possessive feelings towards her. She finds his melancholic behaviour exasperating, and is unable to understand why he will not rejoice with the rest of the court at her marriage.
tragic flaw was no other than the innocent desire for reconcilement and her too human need to avoid conflict.
Gertrude betrays Hamlet and the late King Hamlet by marrying Claudius. Hamlet, being still depressed about his father's death was further upset and felt betrayed by his mother when she quickly married Claudius.
This enables their being manipulated and exploited. Soon after the death of her husband, Gertrude is seduced into marrying her brother-in-law, Claudius, an act that earns the anger of her son, Hamlet. Gertrude's hasty marriage is evidence of her dependence on men and inability to take control of her own life.
Her marriage to Claudius, her forcing Hamlet to accept Claudius as his father, and her betrayal of Hamlet to Claudius after Hamlet sees his father's ghost are all acts of selfishness.
In her relationship with Claudius, Gertrude is driven by her sexual needs, which is the physical representation of her inner corruption. His mother's betrayal leads him to believe that all women are disloyal and dishonest to their husbands.
O my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink! I am poison'd. [Dies.]
In Gertrude's room, Polonius hides behind a tapestry. Hamlet's entrance so alarms Gertrude that she cries out for help.
Although Gertrude seems to be a villain, she turns into a victim that leads to her demise. To begin, Gertrude is a victim because she is naive that eventually leads to her death. At the end of the play when Hamlet and Laertes are fencing, Gertrude unknowingly drinks the cup of wine filled with poison.
After the death of her husband, Queen Gertrude quickly marries Claudius, her late husband's brother. She demonstrates that she never did truly love her husband, but rather that she only wanted to remain in her powerful position and have a male figure to depend on.
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.
Laertes must have been clued in to Ophelia's pregnancy. Polonius inadvertently admits to such a claim. Polonius's knowledge is revealed when Hamlet discloses that he knows Ophelia, his lady love might be pregnant. Check out the words that Hamlet uses when he confronts Polonious.