Green Eggs and Hamlet - Generative Questions

4.5-5.1 Reading (four questions) ---

• In 4.5 Laertes comes back and questions Claudius "Where is my father", when the king replied "Dead", Gertrude immediately says "But not by him".
  
  
• Why is Gertrude is such a rush to defend Claudius' innocence?
  
  
• In 4.7 Claudius is very excited at the prosepct of helping Laertes kill Hamlet.
  
  
• Is Claudius really helping Laertes to make Laertes feel better, or for his own benefit? (4.7.145-155)
  
  
• In 4.7 Laertes says he wants to "cut [Hamlet's] throat i' th' church" to which Claudius replies "revenge should have no bounds" (4.7. 145-147). In 3.3 Hamlet draws his sword and is about to kill Claudius, but cannot while he is praying.
  
  
  • Does Claudius recognize/think that he could jeopardize his or Laertes passage into heaven? Is he helping Laertes so that he doesn't have to suffer the consequences of his actions himself? - Is he using Laertes as a tool?
    
    
• In 5.1 Hamlet asks the gravedigger: "How long hast though been a gravemaker?" and the digger replies "I came to 't that day our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras". Hamlet follows up with, "How long is that since", to which the digger replies "It was that very day that young Hamlet was born".
  
  
  • Are these dates merely a strange coincidence? If not, how can the gravedigger's perspective help us further understand the events of the play? (5.1.145-153)