To what extent are women in “Hamlet” victims in a man’s world?
Although Shakespeare’s primary concern in his plays is not to portray women as victim’s, to an outsider looking in this is what it may seem like as there are only two women in the play (Ophelia; Polonius’ daughter, and Gertrude; Queen and Hamlet’s mother) and both end up dying. Some people say that Shakespeare presents women throughout “Hamlet” as easy to convince and submissive to men and their demands. This is not too strange for a play of Shakespeare’s time however as in the past, women were regularly portrayed as socially and mentally weaker than men. A prime example of the weakness shown in the women is in act three, scene four in which Hamlet confronts his mother for the first time about her “incestuous” marriage to his father’s brother. From the very start of the scene, Hamlet ultimately has control over the conversation which already shows weakness on Gertrude’s side. Gertrude is the Queen and you would......
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Approximate Word Count: 1512
Approximate Pages: 6 (260 words per double-spaced page) |