Ophelia's Treatment Of Women In Hamlet Essay

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In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Shakespeare prevails to us in the play that female characters are being innocently killed. The women are the real victims in the play because both Ophelia and Gertrude are killed for no reason. Ophelia and Gertrude are the only female characters in the Hamlet and they both are quite vulnerable and open to the evil society of Denmark. The play is filled with dominant male characters who all are deceitful towards the female characters. Both female characters are victims of lies which end up costing them their lives. Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius and the sister of Laertes. Ophelia and Hamlet have mixed relations for each other. Ophelia loves Hamlet but her father, Polonius, tells her not to. Ophelia is mocked by Hamlet about …show more content…

Later in the play, he drowns herself. Hamlet says "I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers/Could not, with all their quantity of love/Make up my sum" (V, i, 312-313). Hamlet is showing his true passion and thoughts towards Ophelia. Ophelia has become an innocent victim in many ways. First, Hamlet kills her father and tells her he does not love her. Second, Ophelia is left with no one to help or support her which causes her to start becoming crazy. Ophelia expresses her inner feelings by acting crazy and showing her madness. Ophelia sings songs that also present her true feelings about Hamlet and other characters in the play. "How should I your true love know/From another one?/By his cockle hat and staff/And his sandal shoon" (IV, v, 23-26). Ophelia is indicating that she feels betrayed by Hamlet. She uses deception and feels mistaken or lost from love. "Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day,/All in the morning bedtime,/And I a maid at your window,/ To be

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