Hamlet: For the Love of a Mother
Hamlet the Dane loves his mother dearly. Like many, however, his seemingly pure and innocent love contains the seeds of jealousy, sprouting when the reciprocation of that love becomes stunted and turned to the affectations of another. A love tainted by feelings of jealousy and betrayal many times drives a person to take extreme measures - he or she will do anything to win that love back. I have often felt this same way, for example when a best friend starts spending more time with a love interest than with me, or a dear sibling gets married and moves away. When someone you have shared an exclusive love with starts to pay more attention to others than they pay to you, it not only seems unnatural, it seems wrong and you wonder what you have done to cause a rift in your relationship. The pain a loss can bring and the desperate measures that pain can lead you to take are thus exposed. The lessons Hamlet learns throughout the course of his story are no different than those who many, like myself, have learned to deal with. Hamlet's jealousy is aroused when his mother's affection turns from him to Claudius, making him desperate to win her love back. With this goal in mind, he debates whether or not to kill Claudius. Ironically
The love that Hamlet has for his mother does not hinder his primary feelings of vengeance towards Claudius, however. / The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet" (5. Once Hamlet has been hit, however, he gets into a scuffle with Laertes and after accidentally exchanging swords with him, he strikes him. Thinking of how his father and mother once loved each other and expressing his disgust with his mother's present situation, he says, "Within a month/ Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears/ Had left the flushing in her galled eyes/ She married. / My tongue and my soul in this be hypocrites:/ How in my words somever she be shent,/ To give them seals never, my soul, consent" (3. Before Hamlet goes to speak with the queen he makes a vow, "Let me be cruel, not unnatural. With these words Hamlet realizes the fear he has instilled in his mother and how what he has just done will not serve his purpose of winning back her love. What they don't realize is that it is the absence of Gertrude's love that makes Hamlet's grief that much more extreme. With the need to avenge the deaths of both of his parents, including the death of his mother, Hamlet is freed to kill Claudius and is able to die leaving a legacy that he hopes will justify the wrongful deaths of those he loved. Perhaps this is the reason so many relate to the story of Hamlet. She replies, "No, no, the drink, the drink! O, my dear Hamlet!/ The drink, the drink! I am poisoned" (5. 340-341) As the queen dies, Hamlet realizes that he will never again feel love from her. / I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
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