A Comparison Of Ophelia And Gertrude In Shakespeare's Hamlet

In Act 3, scene 1, Claudius tells Gertrude, “...leave us too / For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, / That he, as ‘twere by accident, may here / Affront Ophelia” (Shakespeare 136). Claudius is aware of the fact that Hamlet has been sending Ophelia love letters, and that Ophelia only told Polonius about the letters “in obedience” (Shakespeare 94). Claudius willingly participates in a situation where two young people, who are struggling with their emotions for each other, will purposefully run into one another. Claudius does not care for how this interaction will affect Ophelia’s naive and sensitive emotions. He only uses her so that he can gain the information he so badly craves and needs from Hamlet.

Antigone is put at a disposition at the beginning of the work as she is a woman trying to voice her opinion in a time where men were only heard. Some may attribute her lack of voicing to her arrogant attitude, possibly rightly so, developed from the sequence of events in the work. Antigone felt entitled to bury her brother; she felt entitled that her voice be heard. She went against Creon’s command and tried to bury her brother. Antigone scorns Creon at the beginning of the play during questioning by back-talking and arrogantly answering Creon.

This is justified in the play in Act 3, Gertrude said, “Alas, how isn’t with you, that you do bend your eye on vacancy and with th' in corporal air do hold discourse?” Therefore Gertrude assertion made Polonius assertion look very ironic due to the erotic change in his behavior. Hamlet mad behavior seems to cause him to lose his focus on reality, but the question is Hamlet “mad?” Personally, I don’t think that Hamlet is “mad” because the circumstances he has to manage emotionally are difficult and people have different reactions toward difficult situation like this. Hamlet yields to physical violence when he’s stress therefore show that he has deeper issues than merely acting

(Shakespeare 217) Madness as obviously taken hold of Ophelia’s mind. She has resorted to singing songs and handing flowers to the other characters in the play, this madness is caused by her father’s recent death and Hamlet’s denial of her. The transformation of Ophelia from obedient and loyal lover to a completely insane person is one that was caused by her gullibility. She thinks that Hamlet truly loves her but due to Hamlet’s possibly feigned madness, she is denied. This denial coupled with Polonius’ death drives Ophelia to insanity and ultimately

As a result, Ophelia’s family tells her she is naïve and that her behaviour is unacceptable. Hamlet then takes his torment out on Ophelia when he says, “Get thee to a nunnery, go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them”. Throughout the scene, the audience can sense Ophelia is feeling heartbroken and betrayed. While Ophelia is seen as weak, Shakespeare conveys Hamlet’s escalating anger, with the character exclaiming, “If thou dost marry, I 'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny”.

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.

Hamlet believes that Gertrude's quick marriage to his uncle was a sign of her weakness because it shows she could not stand to be alone, “A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father's body Like Niobe, all tears-why she, even she O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason Would have mourned longer!, married with my uncle” (1.2.151-157). Here, Hamlet is clearly angry that his mother's emotions were so weak, wondering how she could quickly marry her husband's brother after burying her husband. It goes without saying Gertrude clearly can't be by herself and constantly needs a man in her life to fulfill that emptiness inside her. all throughout the play, she is questioned for being immortal due to the quickness of her marriage; it seems as though she has no sympathy towards the death of her husband and could not wait to jump into another marriage with Claudius. Hamlet realizes this and says "O, most wicked speed, to post/ with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!"

Whatever will benefit Polonius’ reputation is his only incentive to keep Ophelia informed about men. Ophelia is able to reveal to Polonius that Hamlet has affection for her. “‘He hath my lord, of late made many tenders of affection to me!’... ‘do you believe his tenders as you call them?” Ophelia wants to believe that Hamlet is being sincere revealing a feminine way to look at an affair, but Polonius shuts down her perceptions about Hamlet. Feminist analysis comes into play with the male intentions versus the female emotions. The difference between Polonius and Ophelia is that Ophelia’s intentions are emotional and Polonius’ intentions are more social.

The Capulets forced Juliet to marry Paris, the constant fighting made them want to keep the marriage secret, and made Romeo and Juliet to scared to say anything. A big reason is the parents are pressuring Juliet with a marriage she doesn 't even want to do. “if you don 't act like my daughter you can beg starve and die in the streets”. Act 3 scene 5 line 193. This shows how much pressure is on her making her freak out and fear

Yet, how Ophelia and Hamlet reacts to their father’s speeches differentiate. He discusses Ophelia’s relationship with Hamlet, he is verbally abusive and talks down to her. In the play, Polonius utters, “Tender yourself more dearly, or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, running it thus) you’ll tender me a fool” (Shakespeare 252). Polonius uses the word tender to show that he wants Ophelia to offer more respect to herself. He cuts himself off to show that he uses the word tender a great deal, but to make the word, tender, have more value.

With this in mind, if a man couldn’t do something a woman can, he was a disgrace; Lady Macbeth is taunting Macbeth with the gender gap, which makes him want to prove he’s more masculine and can keep it together. Even though, Lady Macbeth is viewed as a manipulative character, towards the end, she changes and shows signs of remorse/regret, which is not like her character. Lady Macbeth begins to feel remorseful because she has made an outright killing machine out of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth starts to ask herself “The thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?

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.

The drama is able to advice readers more or less with the meaning of gender, love, and fate, and it will provide examples of how our society is today. Furthermore, our protagonist, Romeo, masculinity is questioned throughout the play. For example: Romeo fears that his love for Juliet softened him, “Thy beauty hath made me effeminate/And in my temper soften’d valour’s steel” (Shakespeare 111.i.). Secondly, Laurence impute guilt against Romeo of being “unseemly woman in a seemly man” and verbalize that his tears are “womanish” (Shakespeare 111.iii.). Another example, is Mercutio, he enjoys fencing, quarreling, and joking.

The language used here shows how bitter she is about marrying a hideous man, instead of the “handsome, broad-chested Montague.” One can note that Lady Capulet never says a positive word about the man that she married, yet speaks more highly of the father of the man her daughter married. A reader might find it interesting how paralleled Juliet and her mother are. Had Lady Capulet chosen love, she could have been dead like Juliet. Had Juliet chosen duty, she could have ended up in her mother’s shoes, married to a man that she doesn’t like or

Benvolio: Out of her favor. (1.1.163-166) In the play, Romeo was experiencing a one sided love, and to protect his heart, Benvolio told Romeo to look for a new companion. Though this may be a heartfelt and sad scene, Shakespeare used the pun to inject humor. Throughout the play Romeo and Juliet, humor plays a huge role in entertaining the audience and bringing comedy to otherwise tragic scenes. Although many main characters die, the use of word play turns these heavy moments into