McDonald). McDonald's suggestion has challenged my personal readings of the play, as I disagree with ideas of Hamlet being a coward, feeling that his delay in murder makes clear his depth of soul and essential nobility, "whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrages fortune", the metaphor conveys how Hamlet is governed by frenzied emotion and conscience to a greater extent than what he is by ambition. I consider Hamlet searches further than the immediate issues of revenge and succeeding the throne, he is concerned about the kingdom of Denmark. It appears to the reader that the relationship between Hamlet and his mother Gertrude, allows his inner ambitions to override that of reason and moral conscience. Hamlet, the avenger of his father, violently accuses his mother of murder, incest and adultery. McDonald discussion Gertrude's and Hamlets relationship confirmed my own initial ideas of Gertrude's influence on Hamlet, stating how her actions as a motherly figure have "corrupted his view of all women kind". Emotionally distressed he torments her conscience where she replies "Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul, and there I see such black and grained spots". The use of symbolism and negative connotations associated with the colour black, allow us to see Gertrude's acknowledgement of guilt, possibly admitting a mistake in a too early marriage to Claudius, also making apparent her own inner struggles of reason and conscience. Hamlet through use of high modality language then attempts to place Gertrude on a moral path when he tells her to "go to my uncles bed, assume virtue if you have it not", where Gertrude replies questioning "What shall I do?". I feel this can be interpreted with in one of two ways. One, where she is genuinely going to change her behavior, or what I tend to believe more from my personal interpretations of the text, which is that her question simply reflects her conflict between husband and son, reason and conscience, in her wish to please both Hamlet and Claudius at the same time.
