Hamlet - Comparing the Dissimilar Characters of Gertrude and Ophelia Es

Hamlet -- the Dissimilar Characters of Gertrude and Ophelia  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   In Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet it is much less challenging to illustrate the lack of resemblance between Gertrude and Ophelia than it is to indicate the similarities between the two ladies.    The biggest difference between the two is the moral difference. Who can deny that the Queen has done some very serious sinning? Who can deny that Ophelia is a shy, obedient, innocent daughter? Lilly B. Campbell comments in â€Å"Grief That Leads to Tragedy† on Queen Gertrude’s sinful state:    Shakespeare’s picture of the Queen is explained to us by Hamlet’s speech to her in her closet. There we see again the picture of sin as evil willed by a reason perverted by passion, for so much Hamlet explains in his accusation of his mother:    You cannot call it love, for at your age The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble, And waits upon the judgement; and what judgement Would step from this to this? . . . O shame! Where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thous canst mutine in a matron’s bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardor gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn And reason panders will.    And of the Queen’s punishment as it goes on throughout the play, there can be no doubt either. Her love for Hamlet, her grief, the woes that come so fast that one treads upon the heel of another, her consciousness of wrong-doing, her final dismay are those also of one whose soul has become alienated from God by sin. (97-98)    Quite opposite the criminality of the king’s wife is the innocence of Ophelia, a â€Å"broken lil... ...agh's Hamlet." Early Modern Literary Studies 6.1 (May, 2000): 2.1-24 <URL: http://purl.oclc.org/emls/06-1/lehmhaml.htm>.    O’Donnell, Jessie F. â€Å"Ophelia.† The American Shakespeare Magazine, 3 (March 1897), 70-76. Rpt. in Women Reading Shakespeare 1660-1900. Ed. Ann Thompson and Sasha Roberts. New York: Manchester University Press, 1997.    Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.    West, Rebecca. â€Å"A Court and World Infected by the Disease of Corruption.† Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. of The Court and the Castle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957.    Wilson, John Dover. What Happens in Hamlet. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.