At the beginning of Hamlet, I sort of just thought Hamlet had some disorder that makes him paranoid and makes him see things. I thought Queen Gertrude was just a naive woman that had no idea her husband was murdered, and that she's also a gold-digger and married Claudius because he was next in line for the throne at that time. After rereading some scenes, and after a few discussions in class, I'm not so sure.
In one of the earlier scenes, when Hamlet is talking to himself about his father's death and how quickly his mother remarried, and to his uncle no less, he says something about her tears being false and that she married with wicked haste. The false tears could imply that she wasn't actually sad that her husband had died. It sort of reminds me of "A Story of an Hour". The word "wicked" seems a little harsh. But, then I thought that maybe the strongly, emotionally charged word was chosen for a reason, and it could mean that Gertrude was actually in on Claudius's plan to kill the king. We see this all the time; woman having their husbands killed because they can't just come out and say they don't want to be married to their husbands anymore.
I'm also not so sure that Hamlet is as indecisive as he seems anymore. I guess it can be looked at in two ways. He's indecisive and paranoid, or he likes to have all the answers before making big decisions. Like Leon Ockendon once said, "I like to make rational decisions whenever possible." Hamlet could be a master strategist and be thinking every different scenario through in his mind before deciding to do anything serious like MURDER. I don't know, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here.
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