As we can see from the play of Hamlet, Shakespeare depicted women as dependent and below men. This can be seen as Ophelia’s action of giving up the letter from Hamlet to his father Polonius, and how Polonius tend to have to the relationship between Hamlet and his daughter. Feeling and thoughts of Ophelia do not matter; she is more of a “tool” for her father and brother. And the word frailty is used to describe women, which also shows how women were being treated and seen in the time the play was written and even today. It is also shown that women are more of a “demon” than an “angel.” There are lots of hate to women, as we can see from the main character Hamlet to other women, especially to his mother after the death of old Hamlet.
5 thoughts on “How does Shakespeare depict women in the play?”
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All female characters seem to be very dependent on male characters throughout the entire play. Especially for Ophelia, she totally had no control over her own life. I agree with you that there’s also a lot of hate to women and we can see it on Gertrude from the very beginning when she remarrying Claudius.
Hi Mingyang,
I agree with your point of view regarding women in Shakespeare; sadly, women are treated as secondary in late 15th century. In addition, Hamlet thinks that woman is less trustworthy especially because of his mother. His mother married to his uncle shortly after his father pass away. He feels betrayed by his own mother, hence, he lost respect to women.
Women have less freedom than men in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. They’re socially restricted by men. For example, Ophelia obeys her brother and father that keeping away from Hamlet even though she still loves Hamlet. In my opinion, I believe the women characters Shakespeare depicted in his play reflect the reality of women roles in the society at that time.
I think Hamlet is mainly tangled in the description. He loves Ophelia, but he said that she should go to the nun. He loved his mother, but hated the goods she couldn’t help but desire, and threw it in the arms of his father’s brother. He began to get lost and tangled. Reality disappointed him and lost himself. The description of women also showed him that he was very entangled. In the end, all sins are blamed on the woman, becoming a woman who hates women.
I agree that all the women in the play were portrayed as heavily dependent on men and that their values were measured by the men around them. They were depicted as below men and might even be flawed. They were described as very emotion orientated and impractical, they aren’t aware of the important issues, and would only care about their own emotions and desire.