An open letter to Apache OpenOffice

The overarching context is that Prince Hamlet thinks Gertrude is being unfaithful, because she remarried soon after King Hamlet's death. Her skepticism is meant to reflect that lack of fidelity. The line is Shakespeare subtly expressing agreement with Hamlet, by making it appear as though Gertrude is feeling some measure of guilt and is projecting that guilt onto the play-within-a-play. But Hamlet has no right to judge his mother's faithfulness in this way. It's an unreasonable standard which undermines her agency, and it arguably falls within what we would now describe as the "Madonna-whore dichotomy" (i.e. the idea that a woman can be virtuous or sexual, but not both).

Claudius was, of course, a murderer, but there's no explicit and overt evidence in the text that Gertrude was aware of this fact. Both Hamlets, at different points, suggest that she is sinful or evil in some fashion, but this is by no means proof of anything. Her remarriage may be read as a matter of political stability - consider how easily Fortinbras takes the crown at the end of the play - or simply as a case of people grieving in different ways. In this reading, she has done no wrong whatsoever.

Some critics have read Gertrude very differently from what I describe above, which is why I used the term "arguably."