Laertes (Hamlet) match begins, Hamlet apologises publicly to Laertes for the wrongs he has dealt him. Laertes accepts the apology, so he says, but he proceeds with the scheme to kill Hamlet (though after Gertrude drinks the poisoned drink he expresses having an attack of conscience). Hamlet is eventually wounded with the poisoned sword. Then, in a scuffle, the swords are switched. Hamlet wounds Laertes with his own poisoned blade, and Laertes then falls as well. Only then does he truly seem to feel guilty, for he tells Osric he has been "justly killed" with his own treachery. As he lies dying,
Critical approaches to Hamlet on minor characters such as Gertrude, and seeing what they reveal about Hamlet's decisions. Eliot famously called "Hamlet" "an artistic failure", and criticized the play as analogous to the "Mona Lisa", in that both were overly enigmatic. Eliot targeted Hamlet's disgust with his mother as lacking an "objective correlative"; viz., his feelings were excessive in the context of the play. Questions about Gertrude and other minor characters were later taken underwing by the feminist criticism movement, as criticism focused more and more on questions of gender and political import. Current, New Historicist theories now attempt to remove the romanticism surrounding