I’d like for Gertrude to come back to life at this point and just sit up and say,
“I JUST said that. Like literally moments ago. I said, “I am poison’d.”
Can’t a woman even report her own death without having her words spoken and then taken more seriously by a man? I mean, what else do I need to say? Run a blood test; it will ALSO confirm that I am poisoned just like I said before. But you need it confirmed by this guy? This unreliable narrator here who has done such things as a) stage a coup in which he broke open doors b) jump in his sister’s grave c) whatever mischief he got up to in France and now d) this using an unbated and unvenomed sword in a friendly duel to kill the prince of Denmark and my son.
It’s a good thing I’m dead because I don’t think I could live like this anymore.”
The Hamlet Project 