Saturday, November 29, 2014

#10: Analysis of Woman in "Hamlet"

There are only two notable woman in the play so this issue isn't a mountain to tackle. First there's the Queen Gertrude and Hamlet's (supposed) fiance Ophelia. Gertrude gets the most screen time and what makes her interesting is what we don't know about her. The audience is not told how much she knew about her husband's death or about her second husband both before and after the marriage. It is also left unknown why she married him, was she manipulated, was it down to secure her position as queen? We don't know. Her biggest scene in the play, where she and Hamlet meet in her room, consists mostly of Hamlet yelling at her and giving her no chance to explain herself.

Ophelia gets less screen time, and once again, her biggest scene consists of Hamlet yelling at her and not giving her a chance to respond. She tells us that Hamlet loves her yet in the only scene where the two interact, he scoffs her away. She then goes mad and drowns in the river (we are left uncertain if this was intentional suicide or not), and Hamlet reacts to her funeral by declaring that his love for her is greater than her brother's, which some readers may see as more of an attempt to outstage her brother than an actual declaration of feelings.

These roles are passive, the woman themselves don't directly affect the plot, its the interactions with them from men that give them importance in the play. Hamlet discarding Ophelia shows how far off the deep end he's gone, Hamlet's attempts to discover the truth behind his mother's actions create similar results.

It would be far fetched to describe these characters as a misogynistic representation of women, but their roles are so small or unknown there's not enough solid evidence to present such a case

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