Women in Hamlet "Frailty, Thy name is woman (1.2.150),” a quote from Hamlet in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet conveys a message that characterizes the women as weak and subordinate to the men. In the Elizabethan Era women were often influenced by the men’s actions. Ophelia a young noblewomen and Gertrude the queen of Denmark are the only two women in the tragic play Hamlet, and both have little to no power. These limits are put on them due to what is socially acceptable for the era. The two main female characters in the play Hamlet, Gertrude and Ophelia, are portrayed as weak, vulnerable, and inferior, and are manipulated by the men, which ultimately leads to their demise.
His beliefs shape the audience’s perceptions of women throughout the play. Hamlet’s attitude towards Gertrude and Ophelia reflects the prevailing misogynistic values of the time period, stereotyping women as weak and helpless, and condemning them for having opinions.
None of this seemed right in Hamlet’s eyes. This is just one of the many things Hamlet says about this but his mother takes this to heart and gets strongly offended. Later on when Hamlet puts on the play Mousetrap, his mother takes even more offense to how he was indirectly referring to his uncle the entire time. In a private conversation with Hamlet after the play, she tells him “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended” (pg. 72, l. 9) with father referring to his uncle.
Sexism is obscenely visible in his very own, Hamlet. Sexsim is the prejudice or stereotyping, typically against women solely because of their gender. In Hamlet, Shakespeare shows absolute disregard for women when he uses Lord Hamlet as someone who blames women for his sanity, by making them seem weak, vulnerable, and submissive due to the time frame, and using women for certain topics or occurrences needed to keep the story going.. In Hamlet, Lord
Hamlet’s views on women is adulterous which pertains to the misogynistic tendencies in the play; thus, Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, sparks up his misogynistic approaches. Hamlet is repulsed with Gertrude since she was quick to re-wed immediately following Old Hamlet’s death and cries: “She married. O, most wicked speed, to post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” (1.2.156-157). Hamlet is shocked that his mother remarries to Claudius, Old Hamlet’s brother, before letting the tears on her cheek to dry. This quotation illuminates Gertrude’s act of incest which can be classified as an aspect of adultery.
None of the men in the play ever acknowledge the emotion sadness. Even after Laertes’ father is murdered by Hamlet, he shows anger rather than sorrow by impulsively threating to kill the king. On the other side of the spectrum, Hamlet immediately expresses weakness and grief at the beginning of the play, due to his own father’s death. He finds himself talking about the pain he has been hiding because of this, “But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”(Pg. 31, Line 164) Hamlet has already started opposing the intersectional forces by expressing his feelings.
Shakespeare 's Hamlet presents readers with several scenes of violence, such as the deaths of Polonius, Ophelia, King Hamlet, and the fist fights between Prince Hamlet and Laertes. In Hamlet , the protagonist, Prince Hamlet, is portrayed as a very indecisive character. The reader is left to infer if Hamlet is senile, or if it’s just all an act in response of the world around him. Violence is littered all around the world of Hamlet. Because of this, the narrative of Hamlet is always more than it seems.
Hamlet is disgusted by Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius. He feels that Gertrude was disloyal to King Hamlet and whatever love she showed his father was an act. These feelings play into Hamlet’s barrage of Ophelia’s character when he tells her,“If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, though shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell.
In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare presents Prince Hamlet as a tragic hero. The play Hamlet is about a prince whose father has been murdered by his own brother, Claudius in order to be the king. In Addition to that, Claudius marries his brother's wife. Later Hamlet sees the ghost of his father and tells him to get revenge for him by killing Claudius and as he tries to get his revenge it causes the death of the whole family. Hamlet can be interpreted as a tragic hero since he has a noble mind, fatal flaw and he is mentally wounded resulting in his own death.
One's negative emotions should not control his or her actions. In the book, Hamlet, Hamlet has a soliloquy which shows how he can manage to just show his emotions when there are no people present around him. Hamlet has a behaviour of an enough matured man to hide what he really feels towards his mother and his uncle marrying each other two months after his father's death. It might be because his mother, Gertrude, cannot handle the suffering alone or maybe his uncle is the only person who is there for his mother to satisfy her needs. Whatever it is, Hamlet knows that there is something wrong in the situation.