What do you think of the idea that Gertrude might have killed Ophelia? :)
I think it’s very unlikely. It makes no narrative sense, I can’t even begin to imagine the motivation for such a thing (’I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife’ [4.7.233]!), and I really don’t think it stands up to textual evidence. I’ve certainly never heard any scholars suggest this, and a quick search on research databases brings up nothing either.
I do believe I know why it’s been suggested though. It’s because Gertrude is the one who reports Ophelia’s dead (and in great detail), isn’t it? It probably seems odd that she didn’t try to save her if she was watching it happen.
The first thing to note (and I’ve said this before) is that, if there is anything significant that Shakespeare wants to communicate to the audience, he usually lets them know pretty explicitly. Yes, his language is subtle and contains many interesting suggestions, but something as big as one major character killing off another is not going to be passed on in a possible interpretation.
You just can’t judge Shakespeare by the later conventions of the realistic novel. Unless relevant to the main plot, characters don’t tend to have a backstory or even a life off-stage. It’s basically irrelevant to ask what a character was or wasn’t doing at a particular time if the text doesn’t mention it. For similar reasons, while many of Shakespeare’s characters are amazingly vivid, they don’t necessarily have a consistent character, and they can step out of character to deliver speeches required by the play. This is why there are often speeches that go beyond the scope of the character speaking them (like a lots of Shylocks lines in The Merchant of Venice), or the needs of the play (such as Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech in Romeo and Juliet, or Prospero’s speech in The Tempest about the ‘insubstantial pageant’ [4.1.155] of a world we live in).
Shakespeare tends to use extended poetic imagery for things that can’t be depicted so that the audience can imagine it instead, and he sometimes gives such speeches to people who can’t possibly have seen what they’re describing (like Edgars’ ‘Dover Cliff’ speech in King Lear). In Gertrude’s case, her speech serves as an important narrative device and a poetic elegy for Ophelia. Ophelia’s death needs to be reported, partly because it can’t be performed, and partly because exactly what happened needs to remain unclear (more on this below). Gertrude needn’t have seen what she’s describing. Her report reads like a set-piece which could be spoken by anyone: none of it is in first-person, it doesn’t contain her reactions, and even though it’s extremely detailed, there’s no indication that what Gertrude is saying is the account of a first-hand witness.
But there may be another reason why the Queen is so descriptive, especially if her account is a fleshed out story rather than an eyewitness account: she might be trying to compensate for something. She emphasises the accidental nature of Ophelia’s death and supplies the details to make the story and image realistic (so realistic that it’s one of the most popular painted scenes in all Shakespeare). She is the first to report the incident, and she shapes the view of her listeners (Claudius, Laertes and the audience). From Gertrude’s narrative, it certainly sounds like an accident, and indeed, from all the emphasis on nature and flowers, an entirely natural accident. But we find out in the scene immediately following that the death was ‘doubtful’ (5.1.209), a suspected suicide (imagine if that was the first you heard of her death?) – it becomes clear what Gertrude was trying to hide in her flowery speech: not guilt, but shame. If the Queen’s speech is unnatural, then it’s because it’s a practised speech, like a defence lawyer’s. It’s very likely that this testimony and the queen’s position is responsible for the ‘great command’ that countermanded the fact that Ophelia should have been buried in ‘ground unsanctified’ (5.1.217-8). If anything, it’s a case of women standing up for other women, not of Gertrude killing off Ophelia!
You can argue and believe what you like, of course, but the idea that Gertrude killed Ophelia seems more of a conspiracy than a reading of the play, and it may add unnecessary complications to a play that already has plenty of legitimate complications.
















