Sexism in Hamlet Literature Essay Example

Hamlet is a male-dominated play, there is no arguing that. It follows Hamlet’s battle to avenge his father by killing his uncle. The play only contains two women whose only roles are to support the men.  Ophelia is viewed as a delicate flower and is used as a pawn by the men in her life and her only real part in the play is showing Hamlet’s madness. The other female is Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, whom we watch stand behind a man for the majority of the plot whether that is Hamlet or Claudius. The story of Hamlet has a misogynistic view of women that heavily affects the plot of the story.

The misogynistic view is seen clearly when Ophelia is on stage. At the beginning of the play, the viewer immediately sees a contrast in gender within her family. At first, we see her father, Polonius, interacting with her brother, Laertes. They have a dialogue and Polonius allows Laertes to speak, unlike when it comes time for Ophelia to speak. Ophelia is given commands and not suggestions. She gives short sentence responses and ends their interaction with “ I shall obey, my lord” (1.3.36) This line holds a lot of power as it shows how little control Ophelia has over her own life. She has no control over her love life as it comes down to her father’s final say, unlike her brother who is allowed to have a back and forth conversation. It shows the true juxtaposition of the two genders in this play as the men are allowed to have control of their and women’s lives. The audience also has to see Ophelia be used by not only her family but her boyfriend, Hamlet. Hamlet uses Ophelia as a way to show his madness. The point where this is the most evident is when he is talking to Ophelia and he realizes Polonius and Claudius are listening in to their conversation. Hamlet starts using Ophelia as a prop to show his insanity as he shouted “Get thee to a nunnery” (3.1.139) a way to belittle her even more during his point of “insanity”. His outburst shows that women are viewed as just an object to the men in this play. That they can use them how they feel as Hamlet uses Ophelia to show that he has gone insane. In some interpretations, Hamlet is seen even throwing her around sacrificing her mental health for the act that he is trying to portray.  Also her main purpose in the play is to show Hamlet’s anger and true insanity.  This is a sexist outlook as one of the only women is used on countless occasions to show the man’s insanity and does not have a purpose that does not revolve around him. Overall, Ophelia is a meek feminine character that only moves the plotline of the men.

Gertrude is the other female character introduced in the play. She is a passive character with little to bring to the story other than a reason for Hamlet to get mad at the fact that she married his uncle after his father died. She is painted as adulterous right from the beginning. In the first act, the audience is supposed to think less of the first woman that we meet as she is marrying her husband’s brother. We see Hamlet making comments such as “A little more than kin and a little less than kind” (1.2.65) a jab at his mother and uncle. As the audience, we immediately rope one of the only women in the play in with the villain of the story because of lines like these. She is labeled as adulterous, a title that she should not hold as if everything else in the play holds true, the women do not have a say, meaning that Gertrude had no say in her marriage with Claudius. Even if she did have control over her marriage she takes the majority of the blame for the marriage from Hamlet even though it takes two people to get married.  She is also shown blindly following her husband and portrayed as a stereotypical archetypal wife. She follows every order that Claudius gives her and tells him everything. This is an offensive statement as it portrays the narrative that women should blindly obey their husbands.  In act four, she is even seen going against her son to immediately tell Claudius that Hamlet “in this brandish apprehension kills the unseen good old man” (4.1.12-13). This is portraying a sexist narrative that the wife has to follow her husband and not do anything that could potentially hurt him even if it means going against her child.  Sadly, another way Hamlet shows sexism is when she goes against her husband. The one time Gertrude is shown going against her husband is when Claudius tells her not to drink the wine that has poison in it and without knowing that it has poison in it she replies with “I will, my lord. I pray you pardon me” (5.2.287). This is showing that not following the orders of her husband killed her and that women should obey men for their own good. It is not a coincidence that the first time Gertrude thinks for herself she dies as Shakespeare is trying to push the idea that women should not think for themselves for their benefit. This is a sexist outlook as it paints women to be less than men and that men know what is best for women.  Gertrude is sadly made out to be a subservient and adulterous woman.

The two characters mentioned above are the only two female characters in the play.  Immediately red flags should go up. One cannot have 2 out of 14 characters in their play be women and be able to give a stereotype and misogynistic free plotline. It is a problem that each woman’s stereotypical femininity is portrayed as a weakness as Ophelia is shown to be feminine through her fragileness and “purity” both two things make her come off as below the men in the circumstances she is in as she now needs to be protected. Gertrude is the same way as her femininity is presented by her motherly and wifely roles which both have her reliant on a man.   Both of these character’s lives and femininity revolve around men and one sees the archetype of obey come through strongly from Gertrude when she is speaking to Claudius and says “I shall obey you”(3.1.39) and with Ophelia talking to her father and says “I shall obey, my lord” (1.3.36). Both of these lines, though short, allow the audience to see the position Shakespeare has put them in. The only two female characters are placed below the men and forced to obey them making them seem meek and weak as a result.  It can be argued that for the time it was acceptable, but that argument has many flaws the biggest including that it is not acceptable now so ignoring the lack of female representation and presence of sexist views is an injustice to the play as now the audience can watch the play with a new perspective and create empathy towards these characters making them more three dimensional.  Even though the story of Hamlet is sexist it allows the reader to have a new view of the story and look at it even deeper.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet contains little female representation and a lot of misogynistic views that heavily impact the plot. Ophelia and Gertrude are both seen controlled by men and their lives revolve entirely around the men in their lives. Today it is important that a reader can understand that no piece of classic literature is perfect and to be able to see its flaws brings out more in the piece and its characters.