AP English Literature s3

Hamlet

A Sexist Text

Denis Xhixhi

Mr. Jennings

4/25/14

AP English Literature

Hamlet - A Feminist Approach

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are people” (Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler). Feminism is the idea that men and women are created equal and so deserve political and economic equality. The ideology arose from females who thought unfair the treatment of women by society through general notions of women’s inferiority and man's superiority that had been around for ages before (Haslanger). Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a play dealing closely with themes of vengeance, contains many sexist portrayals of women.

Hamlet is a play written ages ago, in roughly the year 1600. In this time period a scientific revolution was occurring and women were mostly treated as inferior beings without capabilities of higher thought with reasons for such ideas being that they have smaller heads, which meant that they had smaller brains, and have wider hips, which to those back then meant that they should give birth to and rear children and also stay home and tend to the house, and so were treated more as property than actual people. ßlong sentence may lose your audience The time period limited women greatly with limitations politically, economically, and even to acting as they were not allowed to take part in plays no matter the roles or even attend the plays themselves as part of the audience (Elizabethan England Life). Women were completely banned from theatres (Hamlet: A Feminist Argument).

The two major female roles in Hamlet are Ophelia, Hamlet’s love, and the Queen, Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. Both of these characters represent women incredibly unfairly and portray the sexism that was abundant in the time period of Hamlet’s creation. The traits and positions that these female characters have and are in are flooded with sexist ideals ranging from the way they speak to the way they behave and even the way that they think.

Ophelia is Hamlet’s love and is weak, powerless, unstable, and obedient; all of which are qualities that women in the 1600s were expected to possess. From the very beginning, Ophelia is not in control, the men in her family knowing of Hamlet’s affection toward her, do not trust her to make her own decisions, but instead order her to do as they say with no cares offered as to hear her opinion, and being a female in the play, she simply complies with no effort to try to convince them of what she herself believes, “I shall obey, my lord” (Shakespeare 1.3.136). Among only attaining a relatively miniscule amount of lines in the beginning of the play, her roles in all show her weakness and lack of will. Even at the time leading to her demise, she was shown to be weak. Her death was due to her madness. She went crazy because she was not able to cope to the loss of her father and lover. The inability to cope can be viewed from her as she sang when she went mad:

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead;

Go to thy deathbed;

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll.

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan.

God 'a'mercy on his soul!

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b' wi' you. (Shakespeare 4.5.160) ßWHAT DOES THIS QUOTATION LEND TO YOUR ARGUMENT?

She could not handle the burden and lost herself and eventually killed herself due to her weak will. ßMORE SUPPORT HERE. WHAT ARE THE COUNTERARGUMENTS? HOW MIGHT YOU ADDRESS THESE? On the exact opposite side of the emotional spectrum, the Queen and only other female lead, does the exact opposite, furthering the ideas held in the play.

The Queen was married to King Hamlet and after his death, she within months, lays with his brother, the new king. Opposite Ophelia, she does not go mad, nor does the play even show her to care. Hamlet even makes statement of the occurrence:

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not nor it cannot come to good:

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue. (Shakespeare 1.2.159)

Hamlet did not agree with the marriage due to how sudden it was as it was right after the passing of his father, and the marriage being to his uncle also did not help in the slightest. When taking into account the Queen is one of the two most relevant women in the play, the play’s sexism really begins to become evident. The Queen simply moves forward as if with no remorse to a point where she almost does not seem human to readers or her own son for that matter. Women in the 1600s were considered inferior and were more objects than people, and the Queen’s character does a great job of embodying this sexist role. ßHOW SO? ISN’T SHE IN FACT DEFYING EXPECTATIONS?

As touched upon earlier, among the behavior of the women themselves, those around them only spoke of them as mere objects. The instances in this play in which women were talked to as though were objects or inferior were plentiful. When Ophelia is first introduced she is treated as an object that can be controlled by the males in her family and the Queen is talked to by the new King as an object as well, “My crown, mine own ambition and my queen” (Shakespeare 3.3.56). The Queen to the new king was simply an item that went along with his other possessions. In addition, Ophelia was a mere pawn in a larger scheme involving her father Polonius and Claudius, and the Queen could in all actuality could have been a pawn herself so as to help Claudius attain the crown. Overall, women were possessions, they were not equal to men in any way as far as anyone in the play was considered.<--GOOD IDEAS HERE

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a sexist text. ßOR POINTING OUT THE CULTURE IS SEXIST? THESE ARE 2 DIFFERENT THINGS. The play states that women were inferior beings that were either too emotional or completely uncaring. The 1600’s notions of women’s inferiority were evident in the portrayal of women in Hamlet. The women of Hamlet were weak people who could not do for themselves and completely relied on those around them as with Ophelia obeying all the men surrounding her and the queen as she bounced from one king to his brother right after her old husband’s passing. In conclusion, I believe a certain quote from Hamlet summarizes the play’s perspective of women incredibly well, “Frailty, thy name is women” (Shakespeare 1.2.142-146).

1 REVISION AWAY FROM COMING TOGETHER. YOUR ARGUMENT IS FAIRLY STRAIGHTFORWARD.

OPHELIA IS PORTRAYED AS INFERIOR BECAUSE SHE’S WEAK.

GERTRUDE IS PORTRAYED AS INFERIOR BECAUSE SHE’S UNEMOTIONAL

BOTH AS VIEWED AS OBJECT.

BRING MORE TEXT TO SUPPORT. RIGHT NOW, THE ONLY TEXT YOU HAVE ASSOCIATED WITH OPHELIA SIMPLY SHOWS SHE’S SINGING WHEN SHE GOES MAD, WITH GERTRUDE THAT HAMLET THINKS SHE’S COLD AND HEARTLESS. YOUR CLAUDIUS QUOTE BETTER SPEAKS TO YOUR POINT. RIGHT NOW YOU ARE JUST SKIMMING THE SURFACE. TO STRENGTHEN YOUR ESSAY, YOU NEED TO DIG DEEP AND SHOW A MORE THOROUGH EXAMINATION OF THE ROLES OF FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE TEXT. THEN, READ THIS ALOUD TO CATCH MANY AWKWARD OR GRAMMATICALLY PROBLEMATICE SENTENCES.

Works Cited

"Elizabethan England Life." Elizabethan Era Women's Roles:Education,Birth,Marriage,Social Status,Life. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 April 2014.

"Elizabethan Women." Elizabethan Women. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.

"Hamlet: A Feminist Argument." About.com Classic Literature. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 April 2014.

"Revolutionary Changes and Limitations: Women." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 03 May 2014.

Haslanger, Sally. "Topics in Feminism." Stanford University. Stanford University, 07 Feb. 2003. Web. 28 April 2014.

Shakespeare, William. New York: Dover Publications, 1992. Print.