I do not think that Hamlet’s hatred for the female is extreme; even if he has a grudge against the women, it is very mild, which gets mixed with his complex psychology and produces a bitter effect. So, before accusing Hamlet of the charge one must consider the mental makeup with which he is framed and the subsequent disasters that occur to his life.
We know, Hamlet is a patient of schizophrenia – his is case of split personality – there is no link between his thoughts and deeds, his now and then. He is driven by his impulses and irrationalities, which cannot be rationalized or systematized. There is another problem, which prevents us from reaching definite conclusion regarding his treatment of Ophelia. We cannot identify his real and pretended emotions in the play very clearly or convincingly. So, how would we know when he insults Ophelia in play-scene or in the nunnery-scene whether he does it really or he merely pretends?
Despite the immensity of controversies about Hamlet’s attitude towards the women, one thing is very clear – that is Hamlet loved Ophelia at one time very deeply and passionately. Consider, for example, the challenge, which he throws to Laertes over the grave of Ophelia:
“I lov’d Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not with their quantity of love
Make up my sum.” (i, V)
I think this is not reckless exaggeration rhetorical bombast – this is the sincere avowal of an ardent lover. Even Ophelia herself says that he loved her “in the honourable fashion” and has given countenance to his speech with “almost all the holy vows of heaven.” Can we call him here a woman hater?
Now if that be the case, why did the relationship fail? Why did he insult her in the play-scene? Let me proceed very calmly to find answers to these immensely though-provoking questions.
Hamlet’s mother’s crude insincerity to his father and her sensual surrender to his uncle have already devastated his good feeling for the women. In such a critical moment the Ghost appears with his strange revelation and imposes on him the noble mission. Hamlet immediately vows –
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records
……………………………………
That youth and observation copied there
And thy commandment all alone shall live…” (second soliloquy)
Therefore, he is to put aside all other thoughts even the thought of Ophelia. He puts on an antic disposition and goes to Ophelia to convince others through her that he has gone mad and his madness is not due to any mysterious unknown cause but to the disappointment in love. We also came to know that Ophelia has already, as her father demanded from her, refused Hamlet’s letters and denied ‘access’ to her, which accounts for the lover’s long study of her face:
“He falls to such perusal of my face
As a would draw it. Long stay’d he so.
At last a little shaking of my arm…
He rais’d a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk.”
Surely, here his feeling is that of resentment and suspicion, as A. C. Bradly says – “He was already deceived in his mother and now in another woman. And his long study of her face confirmed him of her sharing his mother’s frailty.”
In the nunnery-scene (Act-III, Scene-I) we notice that it is Ophelia who first hurts the already dejected lover!
Ophelia: My lord, I have remembrances of your that I have longed long to redeliver.
Hamlet: No not I, I never gave you aught.
He realizes the frailty of her; he should not have loved such an artificial woman. So he denies to have given her anything. When she is ready to hand over the gifts he cannot help putting the question –
“Ha, ha! Are you honest?”
He cannot stand the Ophelias any more. He has known too much of their nature. He therefore, withdraws his love from her before she can reject him more obviously.
Hamlet: …I did love you once.
Ophelia: Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
Hamlet: You should not have believed me…….. I loved you not.
Ophelia: I was the more deceived.
Certainly, Hamlet is aware of the cruelty he is exercising on her, but he has to do it even at the cost of his own suffering.
I do not think there is any serious purpose behind Hamlet’s outpouring of abuses to Ophelia in the play scene. Thinking that the play would contribute to his revenge, he becomes ‘merry’ and finding the woman who has denied his love wantonly, he gives free outlet to his insulting language. No doubt, he goes too far with his obscenity and invective as we hear their dialogue:
Ophelia: Tis (the prologue) brief, my lord.
Hamlet: As brief as woman’s love.
We should think that whatever he says comes out of his experience, which he has gained from his mother’s inconstancy and Ophelia’s behavior.
But, as I have already pointed, nothing can be concretized satisfactorily. His thoughts and deeds can never be estimated from that surface appearance; one must go into his heart to make any definite comment on his relation to his mother or to Ophelia. I would say that Hamlet had a very nice feeling for the female before his mother’s second marriage. It got disturbed later and took another shape. Even then to what extent he is a woman hater remains a question. I would like to quote Earnest Jones here: “The precise nature of his original feeling for Ophelia is a little obscure.”
