Hamlet's Attitudes Towards Women

“But never doubt that I love” (2.2.119). Throughout the play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, Hamlet professes much love to his girlfriend Ophelia. However he begins to mistreat her through his antic dispositions caused by revenge on his uncle, King Claudius, who killed his father. Hamlet has not only become distraught from his conniving and lying stepfather but also his mother, Queen Gertrude as well. The unfaithfulness that Gertrude shows to Hamlet’s father and Hamlet has a toll on him and plays a part in his insanity. The facade that Hamlet displays slowly leads to his insanity, causing him to show mistreated love towards Ophelia.

In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Shakespeare uses range of literary techniques such as soliloquies to express Hamlet’s depression and anger. Hamlet’s emotions play a crucial role to achieve his secret ambitions. Events such as King Hamlet’s death, Hamlet’s mother’s expeditious marriage, conflict between Hamlet and Ophelia. Hamlet’s depression and anger is expressed throughout the play but what are the causes.

Intro: A famous quote from Ghandi says, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” This is a quote that applies to the characters in Hamlet who are driven by revenge. To put in simple terms, an eye for an eye means whatever you do someone will be done to you. The characters acted through their anger and emotions, rather than with thorough thought, because they were insistent on getting revenge on those who did them wrong.

Throughout Hamlet, the thoughts, intentions, and actions of all of the characters can be explained through predisposed gender roles in the play. Hamlet is a tragedy in which the main character, Hamlet, attempts to seek vengeance for his father’s murder, while the relationships with him and around him begin to strain. In the play, gender plays a huge role in assuming the capability and worth of people. Women are most commonly depicted as being weak, powerless, and confused, while men are commonly shown as being strong, analytical, and intuitive. Hamlet features Ophelia and Gertrude as the only two female roles, and even then they show little independence from the males.

Hamlet was an intelligent character, but I thing personally if made him maybe over think things a little more than he should have. The over thinking I feel like made him make poor judgements towards certain things. One of the things Hamlet over thought was Claudius marrying his mother, Gertrude,

For the duration of the play, Ophelia was portrayed as a naïve and submissive woman. Her passivity and powerlessness reinforce the voicelessness of women during the Elizabethan era. For example, “I shall obey, my lord” (I.iii.134) shows that Ophelia concedes to her father’s will, even though she believes Hamlet’s love is genuine. She is willing and expected to obey her father despite the fact that she still loves Hamlet, which emphasizes her character’s submissive nature. Furthermore, in Act I Laertes warns Ophelia that it would be shameful of her to love Hamlet, and she responds with “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep as a watchman to my heart” (I.iii.45). She is assuring Laertes that she will remain obedient and follow his advice.

Throughout the play in The Tragedy of Hamlet, by William Shakespeare Hamlet’s love for Ophelia appears to be questionable. Does Hamlet really love Ophelia? Although, there are enough evidence in the play that shows Hamlet has no real love for Ophelia and he’s just playing with her emotions I feel like they provide enough evidence that shows he really does love her. He is this way towards her since he found out further details about his father’s death and has to act crazy in order for him to keep plotting and trying to reveal Claudius true intentions. I believe this causes the readers to doubt the love he feels for Ophelia. But deep down I feel like he does truly love her.

During the Elizabethan period, the role of women in society was very different from what it is today. According to the system of patriarchal society that dictated that women were inferior to men, they had to obey the male figures in their lives. The woman was seen as the weaker sex either physically or emotionally which meant that it was entirely dependent on her husband if married and members of his family if single. Moreover, in the Elizabethan theater, women were not allowed to play because of this hierarchy. Therefore, they were replaced by men disguised as women. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, published in 1601, women play a very special role. First, it should be noted that there are only two women in the room: Gertrude and Ophelia. By developing the role

It took a series of events for Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, to take revenge on the person responsible for his father's death, his uncle, Claudius. Instead of simply confronting Claudius, Hamlet’s strong desire for revenge resulted in the royal family being killed, including himself. The first to die is

"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.

Feminism has gained a new definition a new understanding of female roles since the Elizabethan Era. Hamlet, a play written by William Shakespeare, is about a young prince, Hamlet, being visited by his father’s apparition urging him to avenge his death by murdering Prince Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius. All the while, Hamlet is enraged by his mother’s hasty marriage to Claudius and is showering his supposed love, Ophelia, with gifts and words of affection. Queen Gertrude and Ophelia are blindly obedient to male authority due to the influence of the social standards that require women to be submissive to men. Queen Gertrude and Ophelia’s actions and outcomes as characters are affected by male influence, the social norms of this time, and the females’ consequences of following these norms.

Love what most people view as a physical affection or attachment towards someone.Is there really a pacific way to show someone that you're in love with them.When it comes to love most people are afraid of showing someone that they love them because they're afraid of getting hurt or for the other person getting hurt. Hamlet does indeed truly love Ophelia, It could be that Hamlet was afraid of getting hurt all along. Hamlet's views on love could be ruined because of his mother's relationship with his father and how she got over him so quickly and married his uncle Claudius.Hamlet is also protecting Ophelia from getting hurt with his plans of revenge or protecting her from his uncle knowing he would use her as a way of hurting him.

In Hamlet there are many forces that motivate Prince Hamlet’s behavior to change and seek revenge. The leading force for Hamlet’s behavior to change is his mother marrying her dead husband’s brother two months later. In the play Hamlet states “O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason/ Would have mourned longer-married with my uncle,/ My father’s brother, but no more like my father” ( I.ii.150-152). This explains that Hamlet is frustrated because his mother moved on so fast and it seemed to him that she never really loved King Hamlet. Hamlet also claims that “Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,/That can denote me truly” ( I.ii.82-83 ). Hamlet is trying to tell his mother Queen Gertrude how he feels after the

In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet there are many male characters, but the only two significant female characters are Ophelia and Gertrude. Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, a high ranking official in the court in Denmark who serves as a love interest and an object of desire for Hamlet, although it is often unclear which at many point during the play. Gertrude is the wife of King Claudius, the widow of the former king, King Hamlet, and the mother of Hamlet. In Hamlet the women often appear as if they do not have a significant role in the play. However, Ophelia’s interactions with Hamlet exaggerate his apparent madness and by being a foil to Hamlet. Gertrude’s purpose in the play is to increase Hamlet’s anger towards Claudius through their marriage while trying to mediate tensions between Hamlet and Claudius.

Starting from the hypothesis that Hamlet feels strong sexual attraction towards his mother, Gertrude, it becomes easy to deduce that his father constitutes one of the obstacles that prevents him from consummating his urges, the other being the awareness of the immoral aspect of having intercourse with his mother, especially considering his family’s regal position. Hamlet acknowledges his father’s superiority and the fact that he is the one that is in possession of Hamlet’s cathexis, and gradually develops feelings of hate towards him and wishes he would be removed. The immoral feelings towards his mother and his hateful feelings towards his father are repressed, and take a latent aspect. His outward behavior is manifested through admiration of his father. Once King Hamlet is killed by Claudius, Hamlet’s wish of getting rid of him is fulfilled, albeit not by his hands. Hamlet’s hatred of his father is