Examine how Shakespeare explores the role of women in Hamlet. What response from a modern audience might be to this aspect of the play?

The first 200 words of this essay...

AS English Literature: Hamlet- A study of the play

Jaffar Al-Rikabi 12-2

"Hamlet sees Gertrude give way to Claudius and Ophelia give way to Polonius" (Leverenz)

Examine how Shakespeare explores the role of women in Hamlet. What response from a modern audience might be to this aspect of the play?

"Frailty, thy name is woman" Hamlet famously exclaims in the first act of William Shakespeare's longest drama, and one of the most probing plays ever to be performed on stage. It was written around the year 1600 in the final years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, an era of real uncertainty and confusion; while the prospect of Elizabeth's death and the question of who would succeed her brought grave anxiety to the nation as a whole, the rise of the Renaissance movement gave rise to many challenges and unanswered questions to the old ideals and beliefs that were for such a long time embedded in every Englishman's soul and mind. Women during that time had no role in society; traditionally, they occupied different 'spheres' to men and so were expected to be completely obedient to their husbands, to do all the house duties