Queen of Willow, Part Two (we love the women fandom hates)
We Love the Women Fandom Hates: Gertrude: Day Three
As Laertes and Claudius meet in secret to decide how to kill Hamlet, the queen comes in and tells Laertes that his sister's drowned. About halfway through this scene, someone invariably says "Well how does she know all that? Why would she be so exact about the flowers?" Now the most likely explanation for Gertrude as a character, not Shakespeare as a writer is that a messenger told her. This is still insufficient for most people because there's so much there that she shouldn't have known. This ficlet is my answer to that complaint
The queen knows of old songs. She knows flowers and dreams and the secret places where young girls hide. The queen sees Ophelia move ghostlike from room to room and remembers when she was only “young Gertrude” making her way through the echoing halls of Elsinore. She sees that the girl is prepared to follow the same path and become the queen when Hamlet inherits the throne.
When the messenger tells her that Ophelia was found drowned next to a broken branch, the queen can piece together the story well enough. She knows the willow that has always given her comfort provided the same solace for Ophelia. She knows that in such a misfortune a girl like her would not panic but only sing her songs louder. And she knows that the girl would never have risked her soul and given up her own life. She has to believe this last bit because perhaps it means there’s hope for her soul as well.
As Laertes and Claudius meet in secret to decide how to kill Hamlet, the queen comes in and tells Laertes that his sister's drowned. About halfway through this scene, someone invariably says "Well how does she know all that? Why would she be so exact about the flowers?" Now the most likely explanation for Gertrude as a character, not Shakespeare as a writer is that a messenger told her. This is still insufficient for most people because there's so much there that she shouldn't have known. This ficlet is my answer to that complaint
The queen knows of old songs. She knows flowers and dreams and the secret places where young girls hide. The queen sees Ophelia move ghostlike from room to room and remembers when she was only “young Gertrude” making her way through the echoing halls of Elsinore. She sees that the girl is prepared to follow the same path and become the queen when Hamlet inherits the throne.
When the messenger tells her that Ophelia was found drowned next to a broken branch, the queen can piece together the story well enough. She knows the willow that has always given her comfort provided the same solace for Ophelia. She knows that in such a misfortune a girl like her would not panic but only sing her songs louder. And she knows that the girl would never have risked her soul and given up her own life. She has to believe this last bit because perhaps it means there’s hope for her soul as well.