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.” The significance of this passage from Hamlet is crucial in establishing Gertrude’s character of firm resolve in overcoming life’s trials.

QUEEN GERTRUDE Good Hamlet

Paraphrase: Horatio suggests that they leave their post to tell Hamlet about the ghost, since it looks like his father, maybe it will talk to him. “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Paraphrase: Gertrude tells Hamlet to stop being solemn and to be nice to Caludius.

But, the king gets super upset–this indicates he recognizes the scene, and feels that someone is conspiring against him somehow. This makes Hamlet happy, because now he is assured of the king’s guilt, and can finally move forward to enact revenge, without any sense of guilt or regret.

QuoteCommentsPg 689 “Why should we, in our peevish opposition, Take it to heart? Fie! ‘Tis a fault to heaven,A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,To reason most absurd —whose common themeIs death of fathers, and who still hath cried,From the first corpse till he that died today,’This must be so.

Hamlet

‘Tis unmanly grief.It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,An understanding simple and unschooled:(1.2. 90-92; 96-101)KING’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,To give these mourning duties to your father.

Claudius said this referring to Gertrude, because he married his brother’s wife. This quote makes light of the fact that Gertrude is once was Claudius’s “sister,” or at least his sister in law, and is now his wife. Claudius comments on how she married while still grieving for her husband.

Gertrude may have married Claudius because she fell for his lust. Claudius may have wanted the throne, which is why he killed Hamlet’s father. And what’s a king without a Queen? Claudius may have lied straight up to Gertrude to get her to fall for him.

Hamlet: O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain! And though Hamlet’s spite is directed first at his mother [see FRAILTY, THY NAME IS WOMAN], here he lingers lovingly on the usurper’s treachery.

Claudius is the newly crowned King of Denmark and husband to Gertrude. He is Hamlet’s uncle. Gertrude is Hamlet’s mother and the queen.

Claudius is clearly tortured and filled with guilt, and knows that he will be judged in the afterlife for murdering his brother. Claudius killed Hamlet for his crown (that is, to become King of Denmark), to serve his own ambitious nature, and in order to marry Gertrude, the Queen of Denmark.

In short, Hamlet is a self-centred, entitled, manipulative, callous bully. However, he is also intensely charismatic, so much so that he has persuaded the world to share his Hamlet-centric view. That is what makes him a villain of genius.

But the truth is everyone in Hamlet acts shamelessly and for us the moral of the play is the production of shame in its audience. Not too much, just enough. “Stay, Illusion!” Illusion is the only means to action. The only thing that can save us in this distracted globe is theater.

Hamlet has several flaws, like a tragic hero, but he is not characterized as excellent by any means. Although Hamlet has the potential to be a tragic hero, his fellow characters in the play corrupt him and cause him to become evil, therefore rendering him unfit for the title of “tragic hero”.

He murdered Laertes, he killed Polonius thinking that Polonius was Claudius, and finally he stabbed Claudius and poured the poisonous drink down his throat, like it was nothing but water, and as Claudius was dying he told him, “Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, drink off this potion.

However, in Hamlet there are three main characters who are seeking revenge. First off, Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Laertes all want revenge for the deaths of their fathers. The revenge plot that should be focused on the most is that of Hamlet.