When does Gertrude show guilt in Hamlet?

Question

if you can, can you include quotes?? At first I thought she was guilty when Ophelia went insane, but now I'm not so sure.....?

Answer 1

It was earlier than that; it's when Hamlet spoke daggers to her...lol...

It's the part where Hamlet talks to her after he accidentally killed Polonius. Hamlet rebukes her and says that she only lusts Claudius not love him. Gertrude has tried to stay ignorant to everything that is going wrong throughout the play, she tries to lie to herself and thinks that everything is just fine. Now that Hamlet is shoving the truth in front of her face and making her eat it, she knows that what she's doing is wrong.

Act IV scene i (near the end):

"Queen: O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Hamlet: O, throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half."

After everything that Hamlet confronts her with, Gertrude finally gave up trying to lie to herself. She feels hurt that she needed her son to tell her what she is doing wrong, but Hamlet forgives her and tells her to live a purer life without the part of her that had lusted for Claudius.

As Hamlet confronts her, Gertrude feels the guilt.

Gertrude may have felt guilty during the Mousetrap play that Hamlet put on, because Hamlet points out about the player queen's promise to not remarry after her first husband dies and all that good stuff about being loyal to the first husband (Player king:"die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead"....Player queen: "If, once a widow, ever I be wife!")

Gertrude doesn't keep that promise (it's a generic promise that everyone makes when they get married)