Act III brings questions with regard to the motive of the ghost regarding the queen; the ghost claims to want Hamlet not to kill his mother, but rather to allow her to suffer her own conscience. A likely implication of this desire is that the queen, being so crazed by her guilty conscience, will kill herself. However, the ghost asks Hamlet, when Hamlet is invoking the queen's conscience, to cease his invocation; not merely not to kill her, but to "step between her and her fighting soul" (III.iv.129). This implies that the Ghost showed up not because Hamlet is about to kill the queen, but rather because the queen is so distraught. This leaves another layer of the relationship between Hamlet and his mother, because Hamlet is not, according to the Ghost's phrasing, on the verge of killing his mother.
Hamlet is furious, calling her all kinds of nasty names, but he does not attack her - merely what he believes to be Claudius, whom he believed he had caught standing behind a curtain, and likely involved in sin in that way; therefore, his killing of Polonius is not pertinent to the fate of the queen, although the queen may not understand this. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze his actions from the standpoint of attempting to attack the queen's conscience, but not to do her bodily harm. At the ghost's urging, after verbally assaulting his mother, Hamlet asks her, "How is it with you, lady?" (III.iv.132). This sudden change in character illustrates that he was not so riled in anger that he would attack his mother with weaponry, because his question would be more begrudging if he retained any of his original emotion, which he would if he were to the point of killing. This demonstrates how, even though she aided in the death of his father and married his uncle, Hamlet still cares enough for her that, unlike Claudius, he has no plans to kill her in his logical soul.
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