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Women in Hamlet Essay

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Scared, screaming, helpless as I watched over idly.

Blood pumping from the wounds, I stared down breathlessly

Frozen in time in disbelief of what went on.

Hysterical, excitable amidst a sea of calm

-Diecast

Courage to Be

One Mans Junk is Another Mans Treasure

Lost. Helpless. Useless. A woman in Shakespeares era. Neither of the two main women in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Gertrude or Ophelia, influence the daily activities of the Danish court, however they play an integral part of the societal weaving of castle Elsinore. The loose mental threads of the females unravel to expose a divided crown scene, where allegiances are clouded and constantly shifting, between past and present, lover and father. Both Gertrude and Ophelia adhere to lacking loyalties, although they reside at different ends of the spectrum. Gertrude exploits the morally weak compass of the Danish royalty whereas Ophelia essentially is Denmarks lackey.

The undoing of the Danish court cannot solely be blamed on Claudius since the crown would not belong to him without the pleasuring of the serpentine Queen Gertrude. Remarrying the fallen Kings brother, Gertrude traps Hamlet in a moral labyrinth where the end is only dark for the prince. It is apparent in Hamlets venting, And yet, within a month / (Let me not think of t; frailty, thy name is woman!) (1.2.149-150) that anger courses through his veins and knowing he can do naught tortures him. Hamlet venting towards his mothers marriage boils down to anguish towards the immoral nature of the marriage as well as the timing of it in proximity to old King Hamlets death, however a role reversal occurs temporarily here. When Hamlet declares Let me not think of t; frailty, thy name is woman!, he is alluding to the common belief in the time period that women are weaker in comparison. His biological mother, Gertrude, however contrasts with her willingness to act on her whims and consequently her strength as well, lending to her ability to provoke and influence in the play. However, her willingness to disobey, an uncommon occurrence among women in the 1600s, eventually sealed her fate.

Stained as a sinner since the Ghost decried, So to seduce!won to his shameful lust / The will of my most seeming virtuous queen! (1.5.52-53), Gertrude is lost. Not only aiding to usurp the crown nor incestuously exciting the bed of Denmark, she also fails to ever repent or even attempt at repenting. She compares to Cain, the first murder, and like Cain it is in her greed and selfishness that she causes all of the turmoil. What is to be gained, however, remains to be seen. Hamlet, most likely in anger and rage, screams A combination and a form indeed, / Where every god did seem to set his seal, to his mother. According to Hamlet, she obviously settles for less than she had already. The princes judgment cannot fully be trusted, as Hamlet digresses in his development to the point where he believes that all women are harlots, black with corruption and full of sexual desire and love for a man other than the one God designated. For Gertrude, old King Claudius; Ophelia, Hamlet. Instead, Gertrude romps around with the fallen Kings kin and Ophelia chooses to obey her father, isolating herself from her lover.

The prince is not the only character to have bouts of weakness in the play. Unlike Hamlet, who acts nobly on his fathers behalf; or Gertrude, who takes what she wants with no remorse; or even Ophelia, who is torn between her loyalties to father and love; Claudius succumbs to his own greed and pays the price with his soul. On his knees crying Pray can I not, / Though inclination be as sharp as my will. / My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent (3.3.43-45), Claudius demonstrates that, far from being one to be looked up to, envied or praised for acting on his desires, he suffers the most from his actions and consequentially has sentenced himself, along with many others from Castle Elsinore, has only one place to go: to the blasts of hell, be thy intents wicked or charitable (1.4.45-46).

The reason for Ophelias damnation, on the other hand, cannot exclusively be attributed to her own actions. Essentially driven mad by the men she loves, Polonius, Laertes as well as Hamlet, Ophelia is not a whore in a sexual regard, but rather a loving one. Buried in Christian burial (5.1.1), Ophelia, whilst living, would most likely have been familiar with bibles take on marriage: Submitting to the heavenly Father, then lover, and only then to other men, including her blood father. Nevertheless, it is absurd to declare Ophelia shortcoming as self-inflicted. Spiting the fact that she has put her sense of love and duty for another man above her sense of love and duty for Hamlet, Hamlet provokes her to get thee to a nunnery (3.1.130), effectively pushing her off the mental cliff of sanity. Ophelia, in this sense is a tragic hero of the play; Never once does she seek to intentionally harm another, and it is her sense of loyalty that eventually dooms her. Yet she cannot classify as a tragic hero since she neither directly is responsible for her own fate nor realizes her waning loyalties are the cause of her demise.

A powerful woman and a cowardly woman. Two contrasting images and ends of the influence spectrum, yet the unraveling of individuals can lead to the downfall of many. Gertrudes choices affect all of Castle Elsinore, whereas Ophelias weakness clips at only her own life threads. One is powerful and prematurely ends the life of her lover; the other, weak, destroyed by her lovers rejection. Regardless of differences., there is one commonality between the two. Both are doomed to die. Everyone is.

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