eyes?/ Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed./ And batton on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes?. ( Act )Hamlet says this trying to convince his mother of King Claudius guilt. For this reason, Hamlet feels inhibited from deliberately destroying the man his mother loves. There is also the prospect that a suspicious Claudius could influence a naive Gertrude to hate Hamlet, or to approve of palace intrigue against the potential assassin (Scott 34). In this case, Hamlet would feel the double sting of his mother, who once loved him, becoming both his enemy and Claudius' supporter. Another form of motherly estrangement that Hamlet would feel from killing Claudius would result from him contradicting his mother's expectation of what his personality is like. Gertrude believes that Hamlet is "sweet." But by killing Claudius, Hamlet would be cruel. This would disturb her self-actualizing conception of the nature of Hamlet's personality, and the realization that this disturbance has occurred would be to Hamlet a source of psychological estrangement. (Sterks, Estrangement). Just as Hamlet's countrymen and colleagues might turn against him as a result of palace intrigue, so could his lover, Ophelia. In realizing the fact of Claudius' crime, which he must do in order to avenge his father's murder, he realizes some "facts" about women that disturb him. God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp; you nickname. Gods creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, Ill no more ont it hath made me mad. (Act )Specifically, the "facts" that Hamlet realizes are that women might, because of their emotional characteristics, unwittingly commit serious, immoral mistakes similarly to Ophelia. Therefore women put on psychological pressures on men that can interfere with men's ability to do what is morally right (Cahn 23). Ophelia, as she was deceitful to Hamlet and turned her face the other way t...
