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Hamlet: Gender & Feminism
Questions to consider:
1
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What was the sociological attitude towards women at this time (historically)?
Provide examples
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Can staging Hamlet in different ways (Stage, Screen, verbal vs non-verbal) utilise
the play as a statement on gender equality?
Possible essay titles:
1
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Sexual stereotyping in Hamlet: making a stand or appeasing the times?
3
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Marginalisation of Women: Hamlet
5
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Hamlet: Stage & Screen – making Hamlet a feminist play
7
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The response to Ophelia: 1602 vs 2015
The Renaissance: 1500s – 1600s
Many professions existed as all male jobs, giving women very little choice but to stay
home, unpaid, and care for the household
...
However
some women had jobs
...
Women were also
tailoreses, milliners, dyers, shoemakers and embroiderers
...
Some women worked in food preparation such as brewers, bakers or
confectioners
...
A very common job for
women was domestic servant
...
”
(Source: http://www
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org/17thcenturywomen
...

It was seen as unnecessary to educate women to read and write
...
The church labelled all females as instruments of the devil (Eve was
created of Adam’s body to serve and obey him)
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The usual age of marriage for women was
14 years old
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Ophelia
Character traits: passive, very little stage time, only speaks to the King and Queen
once she has become mad, she has no personal point of view, she is obedient to her
father, she never initiates communication with Hamlet, she sees herself as a victim
and takes no ownership of any of her actions in the play
...

- Hamlet sees Gertrude’s acts as the reason his relationship with Ophelia is
ruined
- Neither woman ends up meeting his standards
‘an unweeded garden’ Act 1, Sc 2
- represents order, discipline, beauty
Ophelia means serving woman
Fennel – flattery, columbines – adultery, daisy – broken hearts, violets - fidelity
Act 1
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Hamlet vs Fortinbras represents the 1600s customs of chivalric behaviour
Claudius and Gertrudes marriage would be considered unlawful /
incestuous (marrying your brother’s widow) – she is blamed for this and
for the fact she did not leave an appropriate amount of time of mourning
for her husband, even though she would have been living in destitution
(women would rarely inherit their husbands wealth if they had a son)
...
He says
to keep this conversation a secret but she tells Polonius anyway when
questioned
...

Laertes compares Ophelia’s virginity to a precious treasure of the family
name
No one cares how Ophelia feels, only that she obeys their orders but she
also doesn’t seem to consider her own feelings – like they are superfluous

Act 2
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Polonius uses his daughter as a pawn to serve his own purposes – to the
point of prostitution?
The reminder in the play of the fact that men would play both male and
female parts on stage
Men seeking revenge is for honour, when women do it – it’s evil /
witchery

Act 3
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The nunnery scene is very similar to Hamlet’s scene with Gertrude (Act 3
Sc 4)
Hamlet’s description of Ophelia in the nunnery is echoed at her funeral –
comment on the church’s attitudes to women?
Values women should have in the 1600s: be loyal, fair, beautiful, honest,
gentle, truthful

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Ophelia is incapable of speaking honestly when she knows her father is
listening – she can’t break the rules/ formalities that she has been trained
in
Scene 2 – Ophelia is portrayed to not be very intelligent – unable to grasp
the concepts of the play they watch
...

Ophelia is used as a tool here to dictate the passage of time between act 1
&2
Scene 4 – Polonius instructs Gertrude how to be for their ruse against
Hamlet
Gertrude is easily intimidated by her son and calls for help
References to the book of common prayer show what a wives place was
considered to be
Status levels – Hamlet always holds a higher status then his mother

Act 4
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Gertrude shows signs of hysteria
Gertrude takes the role of the subservient woman, Hamlet takes the role of
her ward
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One
passive, one headstrong
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It helps to
soften the blow on Laertes
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– another point of evidence for
Shakespeare’s commentary

References:
A Feminist Reading of Shakespearean Tragedies: Frailty, Thy Name is Woman
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2014, Vol
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10p
Representing Ophelia: women, madness, and the responsibilities of feminist criticism
- E Showalter, W Shakespeare, SL Wofford – 1994
Feminist modes of shakespearean criticism: Compensatory, justificatory, transformational
- CT Neely - Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 1981 - Taylor & Francis
Assessing womanist thought: The rhetoric of Susan L

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