We first meet Hamlet shortly after his father's funeral and his mother's remarriage in Act I, scene 2 who is depressed and melancholic. The morning after Horatio and the guards see the ghost, King Claudius gives a speech to his courtiers, explaining his recent marriage to Gertrude, his brother's widow and Prince Hamlet's mother. Claudio says he mourns his brother but has chosen to balance Denmark's mourning with the joy of his marriage. Page 35Although Shakespeare wrote Hamlet closely following the conventions of A Classic Vengeance of Misfortune, he goes far beyond this form in his evolution of Hamlet's character. Shakespeare's investigation of Hamlet's complicated thoughts and emotions is perhaps more the focus of the play rather than that of revenge, so in Hamlet Shakespeare greatly develops and expands the form of the classic revenge tragedy. Gertrude is Hamlet's mother and queen of Denmark. Hamlet and Queen Gertrude have a fractured relationship throughout the story as she dislikes him for marrying her husband's brother Claudius after...