CHARACTERS: Gertrude

Question 1

A woman of exuberant . . .

Answer 1

A woman of exuberant sexuality, who inspires uxorious passion first in King Hamlet and later in Claudius.

• Bloom (Gertrude’s promiscuity)

Question 2

Pleasing men is . . .

Answer 2

Pleasing men is Gertrude’s main interest.

• Rebecca Smith

Question 3

Women are often . . .

Answer 3

Women are often given the same advice that is given to servants . . . Chasity, piety and obedience.

• Diana Bornstein (Advice given to women)

Question 4

Hamlet is a play about a . . .

Answer 4

Hamlet is a play about a father and a son who were weak because they were undone . . . by sexually treacherous women.

• Avi Ehrlich in 1977 (female sexuality)

Question 5

“Gertrude prompts . . .

Answer 5

“Gertrude prompts violent physical and emotional reactions from the men in the story.”

• Smith

Question 6

Gertrude’s “speeches include references to . . .

Answer 6

Gertrude’s “speeches include references to humour, virtue, flowers, and a dove’s golden couplets; neither structure not content suggests wantonness.”

• Smith

Question 7

By the end of the closet scene . . .

Answer 7

By the end of the closet scene ‘Though Gertrude is still nominally the wife of Claudius, she is no longer physically or sexually in dyadic union with him. She has . . . consented to rejoin Hamlet in the paternal triangle, thus re-establishing the family configuration in its original form, prior to the intervention of Claudius.

• John Russell 1995