Misogyny In Hamlet Analysis

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Throughout Shakespeare 's Hamlet, the protagonist, Hamlet himself, is determined to achieve his ultimate goal by seeing that Claudius is put to justice for the crime of murdering the king of Denmark, Claudius 's very brother and Hamlet 's father, and figures that he must pretend to have been driven insane by his father 's death in order to gather the evidence needed on Claudius without anyone figuring out his true intent. However, this ultimately becomes the undoing of Hamlet and causes harm to everyone that comes in contact with him. The suffering of others in the story, inflicted by Hamlet, are examples of the motifs of misogyny (evoked by his mother), incest and incestuous desires (occurring between Ophelia and Laertes, Claudius and Gertrude, and even Hamlet and Gertrude), which compliments and help develop the main themes, such as, the impossibility of certainty, …show more content…

After all of the torture Hamlet has inflicted on Ophelia throughout act III, scene i and ii, it comes to no surprise how broken Ophelia is when word comes out of her father 's death in scene v. She claims that nature that "...is fine in love" (line 160) has come for the things that she loves, which are Polonius and Hamlet, and that her love for both of them was so noble that she gave up her sanity for it. To clarify, Hamlet has caused Ophelia suffering by leaving her without someone to give her guidance and protection, just like how Gertrude was when Hamlet 's father died. Tragically, her loss of sanity, also leads her to end her own life. Ophelia 's suffering is quite significant to this play since it leads to Laertes 's motif of incestuous desire, as well as, how it gives further motivation for Laertes to avenge his family, thus, adding on to the theme of the nation as a deceased

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