<\/p>
This scene, like the scene that opens Act 3, shows Hamlet encountering a woman who in his mind has betrayed him. Again, he has been sent for, and probably suspects that it is another setup like the one with Ophelia. He has just come from the play, ready to drink hot blood and to kill, and he is given his opportunity. <\/p>\n
This is the first time that Hamlet and Gertrude have been alone together in the play, and in fact is the first scene in which Gertrude appears without her new husband. The bitter rage that has been boiling in Hamlet from the beginning of the play is here emptied at Gertrude, the prime object of his rage. <\/p>\n
Polonius wants Gertrude to give Hamlet a good scolding \u2013 \u201cbe round with him\u201d \u2013 and, bless her soul, she gives it the best she can muster. \u201cYou have your father much offended,\u201d she begins. But of course Claudius is not Hamlet\u2019s father, and, were Gertrude attentive to recent events, she would have recognized that Hamlet bristles at the relationship he has been forced into with Claudius. <\/p>\n
Hamlet comes to the scene with intentions of his own. Marvin Rosenberg says, \u201cHe has come to be cruel. To shame Gertrude, to remind her of her incestuous marriage \u2013 if not her adultery \u2013 and perhaps accuse her of complicity in the murder of his father.\u201d No doubt, he intends what he pours into Gertrude\u2019s ears to be medicinal rather than poisonous, corrective words that will expose and dispel the lies of the serpent king who is her husband. He wants to set up \u201ca glass where you may see the inmost part of you.\u201d Does he mean to kill her? Perhaps he is Orestes here, believing the play has proven not only Claudius but Gertrude guilty. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This scene, like the scene that opens Act 3, shows Hamlet encountering a woman who in his mind has betrayed him. Again, he has been sent for, and probably suspects that it is another setup like the one with Ophelia. He has just come from the play, ready to drink hot blood and to kill, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature"],"yoast_head":"\n