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

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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 and to raise their children up on the very same image of society at the time. In ‘Hamlet’, through the characters of Gertrude and Ophelia, Shakespeare reflects on this truth: both are disrespected, insulted, abused and manipulated by the leading male characters, and both die due to tragic circumstances. Thus, through the illustration of the two characters, Queen Gertrude and Ophelia, Shakespeare is able to explore the role of women in society, touching on many controversial contemporary issues under the mask of beautifully constructed lies of poetry and an unpredictable cycle of events, which tragically ends with the deaths of two of Shakespeare’s most infamous female characters.

The use of Ophelia in ‘Hamlet’ explores the idea of women as mere objects and pawns for others to use through the word “love.”  Throughout the play, Ophelia is subjected to Hamlet’s abuse and “madness” as well as her own obedience to those of authority without real compensation or gratitude. The verbal abuse and manipulation that Hamlet puts Ophelia through as well as the ploy that Claudius and Polonius subject to her are examples of the extent to which men will use women in the name of “love” to benefit themselves. While such treatment would be shocking to a modern audience, in Shakespearean times the reality of the situation was, for most women, men did act in very much the same way Polonius does to his daughter Ophelia for example, or the way Hamlet treats his mother in the ‘closet scene’.

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One of the dramatic climaxes of the play, the ‘closet scene’ provides an important insight into Gertrude’s character and the way she, like Ophelia, is largely influenced by the male characters in the play. For Gertrude, the scene progresses as a sequence of great shocks, each of which weaken her resistance to Hamlet’s condemnation of her behaviour; she is haughty at the beginning, then afraid that Hamlet will hurt her, shocked and upset when Hamlet kills Polonius, overwhelmed by fear and panic as Hamlet accosts her and disbelieving when Hamlet sees the ghost. Finally, she is contrite towards her ...

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