[Maxwell takes exception to Carolyn Heilbrun_ reading ofGertrude as astrong and intelligent character (see excerpt above) and provides ascene-by-scene analysis of the queen to prove that she is highly dependent on, and manipulated by, Claudius. The critic maintains that because Gertrude has generally fewer lines than the other characters with whom she interacts, principally Claudius and Hamlet, she is at best aminor force in the play. Maxwell also compares the queen to her counterpart in the Belliforest version of Hamlet, one of the chiif sources for Shakespeare's tragedy. Unlike Shakespeare's queen, the critic observes, the Gertrude ofthe Belliforest account is "neither weak nor neutral. "Maxwell then presents examples of the queen in efectuality; when Gertrude describes her marriage as merely "o'er-hasty, " she does not recognize the union as adulterous or incestuous because she has been.....
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