Ophelia's Life and the Role of Women in Shakespearean Literature
Ophelia’s life and the role of women in Shakespearean Literature
By Lucerito Nicol Farías Medina and María Elizabeth Villablanca Fuenzalida
Many people tend to standardize William Shakespeare as misogynist, a person whose hate towards women is incredibly high, but we tend to forget where he lived or how he was educated. Living in the era he lived, he could not understand what his words towards women mean today, though many experts have said that he was far from that. Shakespeare uses the ambivalence of women, they are both demon and angel, they are good and evil, they destroy the hero but at the same time they put them back together. One of the main examples of this is the reaction Hamlet has when he’s near Ophelia; he’s actually around her when he pronounces the famous “To be or not to be, that is the question” quotation, another example in this is the reaction Romeo has towards Juliet, in some point of view, she destroys him, if Romeo hadn’t met Juliet he wouldn’t have died, but at the same time she saved him, it they hadn’t met each other he wouldn’t have known what true passion and true love was. In Othello, Desdemona broke him when Lago told him she was being unfaithful, but at the very end when Othello killed her beloved one he realized she was innocent and he was set free of the ‘spell’ Lago put in him. In a winter’s tale we can see how Hermione’s unfaithfulness sent the King Leonte to ‘madness’ and at the very end, his daughter, Perdita, fixed his broken relationship and set him free from a promise he made to the gods. In further analysis of Hamlet, we see Ophelia as a secondary character, who has nearly no importance in Hamlet’s plot, however, we forget that she’s the sanity in Hamlet, when our hero is near her, he can be himself. He actually starts plotting revenge against his uncle in the presence of Ophelia.
When we first start reading Shakespeare, we see him as a man who kinds of adore women, but always puts them as a second
By Lucerito Nicol Farías Medina and María Elizabeth Villablanca Fuenzalida
Many people tend to standardize William Shakespeare as misogynist, a person whose hate towards women is incredibly high, but we tend to forget where he lived or how he was educated. Living in the era he lived, he could not understand what his words towards women mean today, though many experts have said that he was far from that. Shakespeare uses the ambivalence of women, they are both demon and angel, they are good and evil, they destroy the hero but at the same time they put them back together. One of the main examples of this is the reaction Hamlet has when he’s near Ophelia; he’s actually around her when he pronounces the famous “To be or not to be, that is the question” quotation, another example in this is the reaction Romeo has towards Juliet, in some point of view, she destroys him, if Romeo hadn’t met Juliet he wouldn’t have died, but at the same time she saved him, it they hadn’t met each other he wouldn’t have known what true passion and true love was. In Othello, Desdemona broke him when Lago told him she was being unfaithful, but at the very end when Othello killed her beloved one he realized she was innocent and he was set free of the ‘spell’ Lago put in him. In a winter’s tale we can see how Hermione’s unfaithfulness sent the King Leonte to ‘madness’ and at the very end, his daughter, Perdita, fixed his broken relationship and set him free from a promise he made to the gods. In further analysis of Hamlet, we see Ophelia as a secondary character, who has nearly no importance in Hamlet’s plot, however, we forget that she’s the sanity in Hamlet, when our hero is near her, he can be himself. He actually starts plotting revenge against his uncle in the presence of Ophelia.
When we first start reading Shakespeare, we see him as a man who kinds of adore women, but always puts them as a second