The best-known of his works is Hamlet, a tragedy set in the Kingdom of Denmark。 The play presents the revenge Prince Hamlet took on his uncle, Claudius, who murdered his father King Hamlet and married his widow mother Gertrude,and became the new King of Denmark。 Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play, and can be one of the most influential tragedies and most quoted works in English literature。 The plot of the play emphasizes the internal struggles and inpidual conflict among almost every character。 The play was one of Shakespeare's most popular works during his lifetime, and has been often included on lists of the world's greatest literature and been one of his most performed plays these days。

Hamlet was produced during the Renaissance, the ideological and cultural movement of the European emerging bourgeoisie。 The prevalent morality set requirement that women should be faithful to her husband until death。 Even remarriage after their husbands’ death made them fall into a hell from which there is no escape。 They may be blamed to death and bear the accusation of infidelity all the time。 Roland Mushat Frye once mentioned in The Renaissance Hamlet (1984) that during the English Renaissance, the widow was not allowed to remarry within one year after her husband's death。 Apparently, Gertrude betrayed the so-called principle---she married her deceased husband’s brother only two months after her husband’s death。 And she was suspected to have been involved with Claudius before the death of her husband and know about Claudius’s plan to commit the murder or even embroil herself in the murdering of King Hamlet。 There is no doubt that She bore a lot of blames in and outside the play。 In the play, her son Hamlet even had a sense of   infuriate condemnation to women because of his frail mother, which is as much indicative of Hamlet’s grievous state of mind as of anything else, but to a great degree Gertrude does seem morally frail on the surface---it seems that she never owns the ability to think critically about her situation, but merely to move instinctively toward seemingly safe choices, especially her choice to remarry Claudius。

1。2 Literary reviews on Gertrude in Hamlet文献综述

Hamlet has a universal influence in literature and it is really a hot issue and has attracted numerous scholars to discuss its plot, characters, theme and so on。 There are a lot of discussions on the image of Hamlet, the love between Hamlet and Ophelia, comparative literature between Hamlet and other works, translation of puns in Hamlet, humanism in Hamlet and so on。 (岑莉, 2010; 王坚,杨勇坚, 2011) Besides, the topic about Gertrude, the mother of Hamlet has been heated, too。 She is really a challenging and controversial role in this play。 Different scholars hold different views upon this bumpy-fated woman from different perspectives。 “There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes” is also true for opinions about Gertrude in different people’s eyes。 

For instance, Xu Yan (2007) points out that Gertrude is a pure victim blinded by a conspiracy being used to achieve male characters’ ambition in the patriarchal society where she has no right to resist and the author shows her sympathy to Gertrude in her work “Gertrude: A Tragic Victim”。 He Jian (2010), in “Hamlet's Misogyny and Ophelia's Tragic Destiny”, holds the view that Gertrude is such a slut that Hamlet has been severely affected of her remarriage and became cynical about women, what’s even worse is that he forms the view that all women would very possibly be a prostitute so he even transferred this misogyny to his lover Ophelia, which caused Ophelia’s tragedy。 And Meng Weina (2013) regards Gertrude as a great mother and a wife and shows her understanding of what efforts Gertrude has made in “Analysis the Image of Gertrude in Hamlet”。 Shi Hongming (2015), in his essay, describes Gertrude as a woman overwhelmed by lust which pushed her to destroy her love to husband and son；he comments that Gertrude and Claudius are well suited to each other for excessive lust。 Shi even believes that Gertrude was aware of the murder Claudius committed to King Hamlet, so he thinks she was an unwitting accomplice。 Besides, she was not tempted by Claudius but just fornicated with him。