Gertrude has to tell her husband Claudius about the murder, but she wants to attribute it to her son's madness, which she now realizes is all a pretense. So she leaves out the important details that she was crying for help and Polonius, behind the tapestry, was also calling for help. This is what she tells Claudius at the beginning of Act 4:
Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen tonight!
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Mad as the sea and wind when both contend
Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries 'A rat, a rat!'
And in this brainish apprehension kills
The unseen good old man.
When Claudius asks, "Where is he gone?", Gertrude tells him:
To draw apart the body he hath kill'd;
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.
All this about Hamlet's remorse is a pure lie. Her son dislikes Polonius. As he exits his mother's room at the very end of Act 3, he says:
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother, good night. Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
What really happened was that Hamlet frightened his mother and she started calling for help. The loyal Polonius, who couldn't see anything, started echoing her cries for the guards. Hamlet thought he had walked into a trap, because he didn't understand why his own mother was acting with such alarm. At that time she thought he was mad and believed he intended to kill in a horrible manner. He is wearing a sword and has just told her:
Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
She takes his metaphor literally because she believes he is insane. She thinks he intends to set up a big looking-glass and make her watch herself while he disembowels her with his sword. Maniacs do things like that, and they often attack their own parents. So she starts screaming for help, and Polonius starts echoing her. Hamlet at this point doesn't trust his mother. He suspects she was in collusion with Claudius when he murdered her first husband. Now Hamlet suspects that this is a set-up--that she he has summoned him to her chamber with the intention of having him arrested and thrown into a dungeon, where he will be at her husband's mercy. With a woman crying for help in front of him and a man crying for help somewhere behind him, he is bewildered, suspicious and apprehensive. He takes immediate action and kills the unknown person behind the tapestry who would be blocking his getaway. It is characteristic of Hamlet that he cannot act decisively when he thinks about what he is doing but that he can act very effectively when he acts spontaneously. Obviously Hamlet's chief tragic flaw is that he thinks too much and his thinking inhibits his ability to act.
Hamlet's tragic flaw seems to be Shakespeare's way of indirectly criticizing too much education. In other words, Hamlet thinks too much because he has spent too much time at the university and has read too many books. Shakespeare himself had a limited education, but he learned plenty in the so-called School of Hard Knocks. Like many self-educated men, he probably felt a little disdainful of "book learning."
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