dfs
... the killing of King Hamlet. Her character is the one character in the play that I believe does not develop but rather stays identical to the scene in which she is introduced. This is my belief because in the second scene of the play, Hamlet is shown to be crushed by his mother's hasty remarriage. If marriage within the family was common in the days of Shakespeare, then this is understandable, but, in any other case, this would be considered an act of betrayal that was obviously brought on by some outside pressure, probably from Claudius. There is, however, a slight change in her personality that is not quite noticeable. At the end of the play, the King and Laertes(Polonius's son) have plotted to kill Hamlet. One part of the plot was to have Hamlet drink out of a poisoned cup. It so happens that, in some confusion, the Queen ends up with the cup in her hand. Even after the King's warnings not to drink from the cup(she is unaware of the plot), she does. She does in complete defiance of her husband's wishes. The one other time in the play that we see the Queen standing up for herself or actually giving some sort of argument is when she and Polonius decide to confront Hamlet on his behavior toward the King. After some very rude gestures on the part of Hamlet, Polonius and the Queen decide to confront him on his rudeness to the King. Here, the Queen is very strict and domineering which irritates Hamlet. In any case, Gertrude shows some backbone in this scene, but, even though Hamlet had threatened her, she still loved him and treated him the same way that she had treated him before the confrontation. This, though very unnoticeable, is a very large character flaw. Ophelia, a young lady born to the King's faithful advisor, Polonius and sister to Laertes. The first time we see Ophelia in the play is in scene III, when she is saying good-bye to her brother who has been granted passage back to Paris. She is warned, by her brother, that she should beware of Hamlet's lov...