Hamlet the misogynist "When a man gives his opinion he is a man. When a woman gives her opinion she is a bitch."- Bette Davis Throughout time society has used woman as a scapegoat for societal issues that have occurred. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare uses character and rhetoric to display how ones hatred and anger are impulsively taken out upon woman, from this the reader learns how misogyny is difficult to acknowledge, but rather easy to practice. To begin with, Shakespeare uses rhetoric to illustrate how Hamlet is a misogynist. Throughout the play Hamlet refers to his mother as an incestuous, cold hearted, whore, whose actions are only defined by her sexual desires. This was displayed during his soliloquy when he …show more content…
Hamlet views Ophelia as a naive and ignorant girl who is nothing but Polonius and Claudius's puppet. This was revealed when Hamlet said "God has given you one face and you make yourself another. . You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance." (III, i, 143-146) In this quote Hamlet knows that Ophelia is spying on him for Polonius and Claudius. This provokes him to say that god gives women one face, but they use make up to paint on another one. This quote suggest that Hamlet sees woman as naive and gullible creatures, as he sees Ophelia as nothing but an object that is owned by her father, as she is helping him with all of his dirty work. Hamlet believes that woman cannot be trusted as they have are deceiving. He also sees Ophelia as a grown women who is unable to make her own decisions. Hamlet is utterly disgusted by how feeble Ophelia is as she was following her father's scheme. Hamlet once again fails to understand that Ophelia much like himself is only trying to stay loyal to her father, much like what he is doing himself. In addition, Hamlet blames woman for giving birth to such evil and deceiving men like Claudius and himself. When he was talking to Ophelia he told her "Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a revenge calamity which concentrates on his wish and effort to solve his father’s murder. Throughout the course of the play, the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia could be described as a rollercoaster. Although Ophelia is not in every single scene in Hamlet, her impact on the play is highly noted. One way a reader could interpret her presence is because of how tragic her experiences in life is. She experiences the misfortune of love and security, but in order for her death to be truly tragic, she has to come to terms with the realization of her powerlessness without the men in her life.
[…] Blasted with ecstasy…” (3.1.151/162). As a result of this innocence and ignorance, Ophelia is easily manipulated by others for their own purposes. An example of this, is when her father, Polonius, sends Ophelia to have an “accidental meeting” with Hamlet in an attempt to understand his sudden change of character, “at such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him…” (2.2.160). Since Ophelia is often not in control of her choices and how she is allowed to interact with others, there is an element of dehumanization which surrounds her.
From understanding the interaction between Hamlet and Ophelia it’s clear that Hamlet loved Ophelia which is evident in the play from his own words "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers, if you added all their love together, couldn't match mine" (Act 5). This confession was said by him when the play was nearly to end but for most of the play Hamlet expressed bashful words towards Ophelia. Hamlet treats Ophelia like she did not count or in other words he treated her like a doormat. During the interaction based off realization you can see that Ophelia probably loved Hamlet but if it wasn’t for being under the supervision of her brother and father, she might have been able to influence Hamlet and this would lead to a change in the play.
Ophelia and Hamlet’s relationship fall apart causing Hamlet’s opinion of Ophelia to “...transform from what it is so bawd than the force of honesty/ can translate beauty into his likeness” (III. 1. 114-115) and is now feeling betrayed. Their bittersweet relationship was only a distraction to Hamlet, he had a mission to get revenge and at this point Hamlet was ready to get everything out of his way to do it. Hamlet knew Polonius was using Ophelia to spy on him so he took advantage of the situation to accuse her as a “breeder of sinners” (II.I.123) only helping Polonius with his theory of his madness. Hamlet define Ophelia by her sexuality, to Hamlet she was a whore.
Ophelia’s character went through quite a large transformation. In the play her father tells her that she is to stay away from Hamlet and she readily agrees. In the movie Ophelia doesn’t disagree with her father but she also doesn’t agree just to please him. This shows that Ophelia isn’t easily persuaded, even by her own father. Despite her father’s warning about Hamlet, Ophelia met with him in secret at her apartment until her father found out.
Ophelia's and Hamlet Relationship In "No Fear Shakespeare, Hamlet" Ophelia is just an innocent victim that acts on what people tell her to do and don’t respond to what she want. Hamlet and Ophelia's love was real and not yearn, but she let people manipulate her thoughts. When you love somebody they will do whatever it takes to protect and support their loved one while Ophelia plays the victim of loving Hamlet. In the beginning of "Hamlet" Ophelia was convinced by Polonius and Laertes that Hamlet does not love you he is just using you, and that you need to distance yourself and not give all your attention to Hamlet.
Overall Ophelia is dehumanized and characterized as an object that is to be manipulated and taken advantage of to help others achieve their goals. Whose emotions are not taken into consideration. The entirety of Shakespeare’s Hamlet highlights and rejects the sexist treatment of Ophelia and depicts it in a negative light. During the beginning of the play we are encountered with the biggest piece of manipulation.
Furthermore, we haven’t seen Ophelia and Hamlet interact before this so we cannot know what their relationship was like, but we can make an educated guess that Hamlet never acted like this with her before based on the fact that she prays that he returns to his normal self in line 153. However, everything going through Hamlet’s mind is much more complex than what would be going through an insane person’s mind. To really understand Hamlet’s behaviour, it is necessary to look back at act one scene
Only after Ophelia’s death is when Hamlet recognizes his ignorance, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers, if you added all their love together, [it] couldn’t match mine.” (V. i. 249-250). Hamlet clearly had a deep love for her that no other could compare to, but his inability to
Ophelia is blinded by her love for Hamlet, as she undoubtedly believes he is in love with her and is absolutely heartbroken to find out that he is not. She was invested in their relationship, even believing that they would end up married one day, and to find out that he no longer loves her leaves her humiliated and depressed. She feels betrayed, rejected, deceived, used, and thrown away by Hamlet, which is when her demeanor shifts and she begins to go mad. Furthermore, critic Barbara Smith clarifies that another
As a young woman of the 1600’s Ophelia is most likely unaware of the patriarchy that shadows above her. “I do not know my lord, what should I think?”. Ophelia is so unsure about her affair with Hamlet that she
Hamlet does not value Ophelia 's feelings he belittles her. In Hamlets defense this is the way he was brought up to treat women, during that time this was a common way to treat a women. Even though in today 's society it is not at all ok to treat women with such disrespect. He also likes for everything to go as planned and this may result in why he can not have a stable relationship with a woman. This also causes him to have many stumbling blocks in his life that causes some emotional pain
Hamlet just started to use the girl whom he probably liked in his game; like Claudius and Ophelia’s own father did too. It was obvious the character did not know much about the real situation that provided the basis for rulers’ change. She jut obeyed to her father and brother, as a decent daughter and sister, and wanted to understand why her potential boyfriend started to act so strangely. Hamlet demonstrated Ophelia the full power of his talent to simulate madness after his “to be or not to be” monologue. His comments about the value of honesty and beauty and pleas for Ophelia’s move to the nunnery could be first factors that affected girl’s mental
Even though there are some women in the plays, their roles are not significant or are not strong enough. Such character is Hamlet’s Ophelia, who is submissive and cannot cope with life, unless lead by a man. And it is her own opinion that . Furthermore, men in the play are misogynistic. They do not care about Ophelia’s feelings, but are responsible for her eventual suicide.
The point Jones’ maybe about misogyny being “the inevitable result” is directly reflected by the relationship Hamlet had with Ophelia and Gertrude. The lack of a strong women role in Hamlet, or even a women that loved Hamlet produced a misogynistic mindedness. He only had two women in his life to was “inevitable” who collective destroyed his view of women. If Hamlet would of had a more model mother or a love interest with a woman who loved him back, he wouldn’t have been misogynistic. The result of his mother being a heartless whore and Ophelia being a complete pushover and coward lead to Hamlet hating all women.