After he expresses this he begins to fill with rage as he speaks on his mother and Cladius’ marriage. “But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: / So excellent a king: that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr;” (I.ii.130-142) Here, Hamlet begins to compare the great God that was his father, to the half man, half goat that is his uncle. Hamlet is filled with rage that his mother could possibly pick such a foul beast over his father. Hamlet exclaims, “Frailty, thy name is woman!” (I.ii.148) In this quote Hamlet not only curses his mother, but all women. This soliloquy introduces the feelings of hatred towards women that Hamlet expresses throughout the entire play.…
Function: During this scene in the first act, Hamlet depicts his true feelings relating to how his mother had a sudden change of character by marrying Claudius in the short aftermath of his father’s death. The audience obviously sees how Hamlet grieves for a long period of time; completely opposite of his mother who once used to be so fond of King Hamlet. We see his true emotions especially when he addresses the concept of frailty as “women”. The usage of the apostrophe shows that Hamlet believes his mother has a very weak moral character. Women being plural, he is also criticizing the gender (possibly reflecting Shakespeare’s ideologies) which starts a strand for later events in the play. The audience will see that the feminist stereotype can be supported with Hamlet’s association with Ophelia who (contrary to Gertrude) is very fragile due to the death of her father Polonius which drives her crazy and eventually to suicide. Her brother Laertes on the other hand becomes stronger; enough to form a rebellion that pushes its way through into the royal headquarters.…
Another reason why Hamlet’s criticisms of women are justified is due to the profound resentment he has for his own mother, which is reflected whenever he talks to any woman. Since he had a very close relationship with his father and thought very highly of him, Hamlet feels personally betrayed by his mother when she gets married to Claudius. He feels that Gertrude should be mourning his father’s death as deeply as he himself does, and thinks her decision to marry again was brash. Since he is expected to behave politely at all times due to his station, Hamlet does not feel as though he can express the hurt he feels to anyone, and instead keeps it bottled up inside. He is only able to release this anger when he is approached by another woman,…
In past years women have played a role economically, politically, and socially, therefore having a huge impact on the way they are perceived in literary works. Women have been oppressed and undermined by men for centuries, thus creating feminist criticism within literature. Mary Wollstonecraft author of, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, highlights the inequalities between the sexes. For example, men were seen as freethinkers that ruled and changed the world for better, while women were recognized as pretty objects that bear children and took care of household duties. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the women in the play are portrayed as extremely weak, passive, and submissive, illustrating the power dynamics between men and women.…
Throughout history, a strong male lead has been the popular choice in literature. Oftentimes, the females in written works are seen as weaker characters than their male counterparts. This was especially true in the time of Shakespeare. In Hamlet, both Ophelia and Gertrude, the queen, are written in this way. Although they both could have had a large impact on the plot, Shakespeare chose to write them in as small, impotent characters. This may be because that's how women were often viewed in his time.…
Since the Renaissance, when Shakespeare born and wrote his works, many of the plays and literature styles have gained wide popularity among the readers and influenced many of the readers and the critics. Furthermore, people often say, it is widely believed at this time that role of males stand completely opposite to that of females; however, through the play of Hamlet, Shakespeare portrays a complex representation of human beings including femininity in its protagonist and title character, prince Hamlet. The Women in Literature and Life Assembly states in one of their articles, “Defining masculine and feminine characteristics allowed writers like Shakespeare to draw males with certain ‘feminine’ characteristics and females with certain ‘masculine’…
Hamlet is about Prince Hamlet’s misperceptions that women are morally Corrupt. Hamlet’s misperceptions originate from Gertrude’s inappropriate behavior and ignorance and Ophelia’s malleable behavior, and throughout the play Hamlet is rude and cynical to the two main female characters. Hamlet makes a sweeping generalization based on his Mother Gertrude and Ophelia that all women are morally corrupt, and in doing so he demonstrates a lack of trust in Gertrude that contributes to his madness and leads him to more trouble.…
In “The Darke and Vicious Place”: The Dread of the Vagina in King Lear, Peter L. Rudytsky analyses what some argue is Shakespeare’s most important tragic play, “King Lear.” Rudytsky looks at the play through a feminist psychoanalytic lens to explore the misogyny behind some of the play’s key players as well as the play as a whole. That Lear is misogynist in nature (both the play and the lead character, King Lear himself) is not a new notion, as Rudytsky points out. Many before him have searched for and found hidden anti-feminist sentiments in the work. This, he also states, is partially because, “Shakespeare’s plays are written from a male perspective and depict predominantly conflicts of masculine identity” (292). From a psychoanalytical standpoint, these “perspectives” and “depictions” could be interpreted as Shakespeare’s own struggle with his masculine identity on the subconscious plane coming forth in his writing. Or, they could simply be because he was a man writing about men in what, at the time, was predominantly a man’s world. As a man, it would have been a great challenge for Shakespeare to write successfully from a female perspective on his chosen subject matter, especially at the time in which he was prominent when there was little understanding or consideration of women.…
Gender inequality in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, is a key discourse which is explored throughout the character of Ophelia. In Elizabethan England, the period of William Shakespeare, women were brought up in a patriarchal society where they were dominated by the authority of men. Women were socially degraded and taught they were inferior to men. Ophelia, is portrayed as weak, submissive and is manipulated continuously by the male figures in her life. Throughout the play, Ophelia is continuously taken advantage of and used as an object by her father Polonius and her love interest Hamlet. In modern day society, women have become more independent and generally have more freedom in regards to social expectations.…
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is an intricate literary masterpiece, made up of a conglomeration of different techniques that add dimension, color, and texture to the story. There are countless uses of characterization, dark humor, and many other literary components in Hamlet, all of which are used to give the reader a more emotional and thought provoking reading or listening experience, and insight into the twisted storyline. One of the most interesting of Shakespeare’s techniques is the characterization of each gender as a separate entity. He seems to give the main characters traits that will lead them to follow certain trends for their gender. In Hamlet, Shakespeare characterizes the main male characters as men with power who tend to exercise…
In Hamlet, Shakespeare uses crude diction and immoral similies to accentuate Hamlet’s duality of human nature as revneger.…
“Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men” –William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare conveys this message about women being inferior to men through all his plays. He says that men are women’s strength and are the reason for women’s survival. Shakespeare shows women to be obedient and weak, whereas, men to be strong and independent. Once again, Shakespeare continued this trend of showing women to be dominated and influenced figures in his play Hamlet. Hamlet was written in 160 set in Denmark during the Elizabethan era. A very significant part of the play Hamlet is gender roles where the men are powerful, dominant, and revengeful but, the women are fragile, manipulated, and simply weak. There are many examples throughout Hamlet in…
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark". The novel, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare revolves around injustice and how the main character goes on trying to fix this injustice. Shakespeare utilizes literary techniques such as allusion and setting to evoke sympathy for the victims from the audience. This injustice starts to involve more and more people as the story continues.…
Polonius has conversed with King Claudius and Queen Gertrude about the reason behind Hamlet’s craziness. To prove that his assertions are correct, Polonius has come up with a strategy. In this text, Polonius is saying that he will send off Ophelia to Hamlet while him and Claudius secretly hide behind the arras to watch. Polonius uses the description of “loosing” his daughter. The phrase “loose” is generally mentioned when referring to a dog/an animal. In addition, the term could be meant to set free from confinement. With the use of this terminology, Polonius is portrayed as impudent and controlling. Furthermore, the motif of misogyny is present from Polonius’ way of depicting Ophelia. The way he speaks of her, “loose[ning],” represents how…
Shakespeare's tragedies Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet are plays with multiple layers, motifs, and themes. He uses poison and suicide as a motif, in order to show that the roles people play are poisoned and uses death to represent a way out of those roles, especially for women who seem to be marginalized sexual beings. The theme, women as a sexual being, is presented in both plays. Juliet is portrayed as an independent sexual woman and Gertrude and Ophelia are dependent sexual women. The role of women is important because women represent a tool which men use to manipulate their circumstances; in Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is a woman who knows what she wants and who she is, all the while struggling to push back male dominance; in Hamlet, Ophelia and Gertrude are used willingly as instruments for the enhancement of their male counter parts. The dominance by men causes the women to make decisions with fatal ends; all three women cannot act freely because of the constraints of their male centered society. Shakespeare uses the plays, albeit in extremes, to show how men sexualize and moralize women, which distorts their roles and actions to propel the characters toward negative outcomes; the way he uses these roles shows us the damage and tragedy of women stuck in these roles, suggesting that women should be allowed to have their own feelings, emotions, sexuality, and identity.…