Question

Read the excerpt from Hamlet, Act I, Scene ii. [Hamlet:] Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on; and yet, within a month, Let me not think on ’t: Frailty, thy name is woman! A little month; or ere those shoes were old With which she follow’d my poor father’s body, Like Niobe, all tears; why she, even she,— O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle, My father’s brother, but no more like my father Than I to Hercules . . . In this excerpt, Hamlet characterizes his mother as eager. fickle. loyal. sickly.

Answer 1

Answer:

In this excerpt, Hamlet characterizes his mother as b) fickle.

Explanation:

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Gertrude is Prince Hamlet's mother and the Queen of Denmark. After King Hamlet dies, Gertrude decides to marry his brother, Claudius. Therefore, in this excerpt from the play, Hamlet criticizes his mother for marrying Claudius so hastily after his father's death and he even describes her as a "weak" woman for doing it. Hamlet questions Gertrude's commitment to his father and, in that sense, he characterizes her as fickle, that is to say as a person who changes her feelings too suddenly, which makes her unable to be loyal.