One belief that is necessary for an understanding of
Shakespeare's Hamlet is the belief that Gertrude's marriage to
Claudius is an act of incest. The marriage, therefore, is not just unusual, and is not
just uncomfortable for Hamlet, it is sinful.
Gertrude would
have become one with King Hamlet's family when she married into it. Marrying King
Hamlet's brother (Claudius) was seen as marrying a member of her own family. Thus, the
marriage is incestuous, as Hamlet says in the play.
This
helps to explain Hamlet's obsession with the marriage and, particularly, with Gertrude's
sex life. Gertrude having sex with Claudius, viewed by Elizabethans, is an incestuous
act. She is living in sin, in Hamlet's eyes.
Hamlet has
not only lost his father unexpectedly, lost his rightful throne, and experienced his
mother's hasty remarriage, but he has also experienced his mother committing incest to
satisfy, as he sees it, her sexual desires.
Gertrude's
marriage to Claudius is not so hideous to a modern audience. To fully appreciate
Hamlet's situation, however, one must understand the Elizabethan idea that the marriage
is incestuous.
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