Gertrude: The Queen at the Centre of Everything

Gertrude is one of the most debated characters in Shakespeare's plays. Did she know Claudius killed her first husband? The play never says. She is loving toward Hamlet, apparently devoted to Claudius, and almost entirely without private reflection. We never hear her thoughts directly. We can only read her through action.

What the text supports is a woman who survived by being necessary to powerful men, and who pays for that survival at the end. Her death by the poisoned cup is accidental: she drinks when Claudius could have stopped her and does not. Whether that is significant is left to the audience.

Hamlet's fury at her remarriage drives more of the play's emotional engine than his desire for revenge. His disgust at 'the rank sweat of an enseamed bed' is visceral, almost uncontrolled, and it colours every scene they share.