Topic > Frailty Thy Name is Woman: Depiction of Female Characters in Hamlet

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's greatest books ever written, in which only two female characters, Ophelia and Gertrude, are introduced within the longest play by Shakespeare, with over thirty thousand words. It can therefore be said that the women in Shakespeare's “Hamlet” appear inferior and submissive, and die impulsively after mistreatment by men. However, during the seventeenth century, male actors were more superior as they were typically the actors who played both male and female characters in theatre, showing the inferior status of women which led to them being emphasized as repressed, and so throughout the he play, Hamlet's Soliloquies will dramatize the idea of ​​a man struggling with his thoughts to make sense of his complex feelings and emotions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Act One, Scene Two, Hamlet is presented as a misogynistic character as his sexist views begin to shine through his hatred of women in general and can when he exclaims, “frailty, thy name is woman,” the who highlights the fact that women are weak because he generalizes his mother's flaws, which is seen in the fragility of every "woman", which shows the extent of his hatred towards his mother. However, not in the sense that they are physically weak, but rather that they lack moral principles and strength, as he sees Gertrude as a woman, who lacks the moral strength to resist Claudius's seduction and remarriage so quickly after the death of her boyfriend. father. For this reason, she argues that she is immoral due to marrying soon after her father's death, despite the fact that widowed women were not supposed to remarry, but instead dedicated their lives to providing for and raising their children. However, Freud had argued that women's egos were not as developed as men's and were therefore prone to acts of immorality, although her remarriage is not as shocking to modern audiences as it was at the time the work it was written! The noun "fragility" represents "woman" since she is vulnerable by nature and therefore is weak because she has committed a sin. This continues with him becoming more and more disappointed as she proves herself to be weaker than men while Hamlet speaks to Gertrude with passionate anger, which shows his dominance as he intrudes on her privacy and sexual life as he says it is, "with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” The sibilant sibilances in Hamlet's words convey revulsion as he imagines his mother and uncle in bed together, showing that Gertrude's shameful conduct has caused him to lose his trust in all women and his respect for them. .The audience of the Elizabethan period would also have found it disturbing if a woman slept with a brother's spouse as it was considered incestuous by social conventions. This, therefore, gives the idea that men regulate women as it reflects the social needs of women to have a husband to keep things stable and under control since Hamlet's mistreatment of the female characters in the play is a vain attempt to sublimate his own feminine characteristics. . On the other hand, some might argue that scholars have speculated that Hamlet's fixation with the illegitimacy of Gertrude's incestuous marriage to her dead husband's brother was intended to make a favorable impression on Queen Elizabeth, who was the monarch reigning at the time Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. However, Gertrude can be seen as supportive and committed to maintaining the women's union as she responds to Laertes by saying, "as one incapable of her own!