How Hamlet Presents Its Female Characters

How Hamlet Presents Its Female Characters

Hamlet is said to be one of the most discussed works of literature in

the world. Shakespeare has generally

presented strong women in his plays; for example Lady Macbeth, Portia

and Rosaline. This may have been influenced by his personal life, as

his wife Ann Hathaway, was eight years his senior. However the women

in Hamlet have weaknesses, both Gertrude and Ophelia show compassion

and neither are ruthless in their attitudes and actions, however

ruthlessness is not always a strength in women. Hamlet is one of

Shakespeare’s most complicated characters, but ironically he sees no

complexity in the people around him especially the female characters

of this play. Hamlet’s complexity makes him a very interesting

character and this reflects upon the rest of the play, giving it

grounds to be one of the most discussed works of literature ever, this

also reflects in the way Shakespeare presents the other characters to

us.

Hamlet sees his mother, Gertrude, from the beginning of the play as no

more than an adulteress, but I believe that these views are a result

of jealousy of Claudius. In his first soliloquy he remarks more upon

his mother’s new marriage than the recent death of his father and I

think that it is not his father’s death which has affected him but the

remarriage of his mother to his uncle; “Would have mourn’d longer, -

married with mine uncle, My fathers brother.” In fact Hamlet spends

most of his time during this soliloquy talking of his mother’s

remarriage rather than his dead father. In contrast with Hamlet’s

view, Gertrude does not think that her remarriage has offended anyone

and she thinks that maybe it has affected Hamlet because the marriage

was rushed and too soon after his fathers death “His fathers death and

our o’erhasty marriage” Perhaps it has not and it is just Hamlet’s

attitude to his uncle but mainly to his suspected Oedipus complex as

thought by critic Ernest Jones, when Hamlet and his mother are talking

alone he says "O, throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer