Suffocating Mothers (Adelman, 1992)

- Shakespearean tragedy will persistently work toward the desexualisation of the maternal body and recreation of a bodiless father

-Old Hamlet is the "hyperion": divinely distant from ordinary genital sexuality

-The image of paternal love is so satisfying to Hamlet because it seems to enfold his mother safetly within his father's protective embrace

-The exisence of Gertrude's appetite threatens the image of his father's god like control

-The poisoning of Old Hamlet likens to Cain killing Abel (story of Adam and Eve with no…