Introduction
What did she know and when did she know it? That is the question for Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother.
The situation, for those unfamiliar with the play, is that Hamlet’s father (also named Hamlet) dies while Hamlet is away at school. By the time young Hamlet gets home, his uncle Claudius has seized the crown and his mother, Gertrude, has become uncomfortably close to Claudius. In fact, they are getting married as the play begins.
That is awkward enough for the young man but it gets worse. The ghost of the father has been spotted on the battlements at midnight. The ghost tells Hamlet that he was poisoned by his own brother. In addition to murder, he accuses Claudius of seduction, beguiling his “most seeming-virtuous queen” and turning “the royal bed of Denmark” into “a couch for luxury and damned incest.”
Hamlet swears vengeance on Claudius but his father urges him to leave Gertrude alone. Hamlet should “leave her to heaven” and the torments of her own conscience.
Generations of playgoers, many of whom share Hamlet’s misogynist tendencies, have judged Gertrude. They say she was too quick to jump into Claudius’s bed. They say she must have been a party to the murder. She would like a chance to rebut the charges and explain how things were for women in medieval times.
Hamlet’s Mother Explains
I am Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. Hear my story.
When King Hamlet died, I lost not just a husband. I lost my job. I lost my role in life.
I was a widow. My future looked dim when Claudius usurped the crown. Would he send me to the dungeon or to a nunnery? I could not go home. There was no home. No court would welcome another needy widow.
Could I stage a rebellion? Not likely. I had no allies and my son Hamlet was not a warrior. He might resent his uncle’s taking the crown but he would not fight for it. I knew my boy.
I was adrift with grief and worry when Claudius proposed marriage. There was no attraction for me. I was too recently a widow, still mourning the man I had been married to for more than thirty years. In that time, I had grown to love King Hamlet, though there was no romance initially. We were a political match.
My sisters and I never expected to choose our husbands. We were used to the idea that our futures would be determined by which man took a liking to us, which man had the most to offer Father. A princess was born to be a bargaining chip.
Claudius was unmarried. He had no children. If he married a young woman and had heirs, my prince, Hamlet, would no longer be first in line for the crown. It was hard but I said yes. For myself. For my son.
I did not know he was my husband’s murderer. I did not dare think it as I accepted what he offered: the opportunity to remain the Queen of Denmark, to preserve my son’s right to the throne.
Understand before you judge.
DoubleSpeak 