Therefore, the King has married Gertrude “With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage” (1.2. 12). This is one of the many paradoxes in this paradoxical play, but the King doesn’t mean it as a paradox. He wants everybody to be happy and calm.

Because he was in love with her. The fact that she was “the imperial jointress to our warlike state”(Act I, scene 2) and thus secured his claim to the throne was also, no doubt, quite a bonus. Claudius loves Gertrude more than anything, except himself.

In Act 3 Scene 4, Hamlet accuses Gertrude of lust for marrying Claudius only few months after King Hamlet’s death – he believes that Gertrude married Claudius for he own desire. However, there also is a possibility that Gertrude was taking the responsibility to protect and stabilize the nation as a queen.

Gertrude

Instead, Gertrude’s love for Claudius creates a thrilling twist to the closet scene in which he is revealed as a murderer. The final Act, in which she is clearly aware that the wine is poisoned, sees her sacrifice herself to save Hamlet.

Ophelia syndrome is the association of Hodgkin lymphoma with an autoimmune limbic encephalitis, as a result of anti-metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 antibodies (mGluR5) 1.

This clinical entity is termed the Ophelia syndrome (OS), after Shakespeare’s unfortunate Danish maiden.

In Act 4 Scene 7, Queen Gertrude reports that Ophelia had climbed into a willow tree (There is a willow grows aslant the brook), and that the branch had broken and dropped Ophelia into the brook, where she drowned.

Ophelia’s death symbolizes a life spent passively tolerating Hamlet’s manipulations and the restrictions imposed by those around her, while struggling to maintain the last shred of her dignity. Her apparent suicide denotes a desire to take control of her life for once.

It is likely that Hamlet really was in love with Ophelia. Readers know Hamlet wrote love letters to Ophelia because she shows them to Polonius. In addition, Hamlet tells Ophelia, “I did love you once” (3.1. 117).

For example in Hamlet, he and Horatio were more than just friends they were lovers. Horatio is the only one who knows for certain that Hamlet madness is an act. He is the one person Hamlet love deeply, and trust personally, and the main person to comfort him at his death.

I believe that Hamlet tells Ophelia to go to the nunnery to protect her from what is coming. He knows that he is going to kill and does not want her to have to deal with the stigma of his actions. Telling her he never loved her and to go to the nunnery was the ultimate act of love.