Hamlet Bad Mother Analysis

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Mothers are a complicated category of persons; every mother will have a different style of parenting, a variety of strengths, and their own personal pitfalls. However, despite no two mothers being exactly alike, there are two commonalities that are said to unite them, which are their concern and love for their children. A mother’s concern for her child is rooted in the unspoken plan for said child to supersede their parents in all matters of life, such as wealth, happiness, and love. Love is a seemingly simple idea, but how people, especially mothers, demonstrate their love is unique. Furthermore, how the world interprets mothers and the maternal instinct varies vastly between cultures and time periods. In Shakespearean plays, mothers, and …show more content…
Hamlet, as stated by Stephanie Chamberlain, “represents his mother as a sexually voracious widow” (31). This, unfortunately, allows the audience to misconstrue Gertrude’s true nature and the nature of her relationship with Claudius. Gertrude is not sexually immoral, but, as mentioned by Richard Corum, “critics charge her with uncontrolled sexuality. [However,] what is most irritating to [these] critics…is that her sexuality is self-controlled” (201). In choosing to acknowledge that Gertrude determines what she does with whatever amount of sexual appetite she possesses, critics indicate that she made a conscious choice to remarry. This sane decision to marry her dead husband’s brother is confusing to those who fail to grasp the circumstances surrounding the union. Additionally, Gertrude and Claudius’s relationship does not seem lustful because, according to Harmonie Loberg, the couple “never appear to share romantic or passionate affections with each other, only discussing Hamlet’s behavior and governmental concerns... [and] in comparison to the love/lust of Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra, the King and Queen’s union seems sterile, with [mostly] political motivations” (63). Therefore, leading people to …show more content…
In Hamlet, Queen Gertrude is a woman of status, but her character traits are rather plebian, allowing Shakespeare to make a crucial statement that will never be altered. Mothers are universally human. People, when addressing motherhood, fail to address the imperfections of mothers. These people, women and men alike, implement unrealistic expectations that women mistakenly use to format society’s idea of the ‘perfect’ mother. This causes a variety of misconceptions about motherhood and the sacrifices it entails. Nevertheless, Queen Gertrude, when stripped of all the prejudice and frivolities, is a mother utilizing her resources and ideas to protect her child. Although her choices may be misunderstood, she, like many mothers throughout the world, is doing her best and trying to keep her humanity
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