Hamlet's Attack on his Mother

In Act III of scene IV, the audience first witnesses the direct harshness and verbal abuse Hamlet directs towards his mother and his hatred for her immoral marriage to his uncle after the recent death of Hamlet's father. Hamlet considers the relationship between husband and wife to be strong even after death, and perceives the quickness of his mother's marriage as an immoral, selfish act that would "have my father much offended." He attempts to remind her of the love his father and she shared for each other before his death and harshly criticizes her for simply disregarding their love through her quick act of marriage, calling her "your husband's brother's wife". With this title, Hamlet reminds the Queen of the emotionally and personally strong relation she had for Hamlet's father and the immoral incest she's involved in after the death of the previous king. To further criticize her for her impurity and failure to grieve for her husband, Hamlet emphasizes the details of her immoral engagement with her husband's brother, claiming her love life is as if living "In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,/ Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love/ Over the nasty sty." With such graphic and dirty details, Hamlet compares the Queen's love life with her husband's brother to a wild animal's life, filled with dirty, vile impurity.