Hamlet on Woman: Feminism and Misogyny

Literature is an art and like painting or sculpture, it responds to the social reality of the
moment, reflected in the pages of literary works. That is why through a work, whether
it is a play, a novel, or an essay, we can get a closer look at the economic, social and
historical reality of the time it was written. While it is true, there are works that are set
in past (or even future) times or events, so that social patterns will adjust to those of
the historical stage in which the events take place.

That is the case of Hamlet, a work that I will analyze in this article. Despite being
written by Shakespeare at the end of the sixteenth century, the events take place in
the Middle Ages, although it is undeniable that in the soliloquies of the characters are
reflected certain features of life in the Elizabethan era, such as the relationship
between men and women and the role of the latter directly linked to married or
religious life (marriage or convent).

Throughout history, women have been victims of a patriarchal and macho society, in
which man, by definition, was superior to women in all aspects of public and private
life. Males exercised direct control over women, whose sole function was to prepare
for marriage, to father children and to take care of their care and housework. This
situation is reflected in the literature if we analyze the roles of each character
according to their gender, as well as the relationships between the characters.

Misogyny are also embodied in the language used by the characters, for we cannot
ignore the fact that language, the means of communication, represents the essence of
society as well as literature. In the case of the work that I will study in this essay,
Hamlet's soliloquies distil hatred towards his mother, a hatred extrapolated to the rest
of women and Ophelia herself, a woman whom she had once loved and dreamed of
marrying.

I will analyze the language in Hamlet from the perspective of the relationships
between the characters according to their gender. For this I have chosen fragments of
the Shakespearean work in which Hamlet addresses Ophelia. For a better
understanding of the content of the fragments I have chosen and their relation to the
plot of the work, the work includes several sections of contextualization in which I
contribute data about the role of women in the Elizabethan period, the main features
of the theater Of the sixteenth century, a summary of Hamlet referring to the most
relevant themes and the role of Ofelia.

In the absence of manuscripts, the exact date in which Shakespeare wrote Hamlet is
unknown, reason why the theoreticians establish that this theater piece came to light
between 1599 and 1601.
The tragedy, in Denmark, deals with the events following the assassination of King
Hamlet (father of Prince Hamlet), at the hands of his own brother Claudius. The king's
ghost asks his son to take revenge on the man who took his life with the aim of
crowning himself as a new monarch and marrying Gertrudis.

In this work appear subjects such as the real madness (incarnated by Ophelia, who
ends up committing suicide) and feigned (reflected in Hamlet); Treason (assassination
of King Hamlet at the hands of his brother); Revenge (Hamlet must avenge the death
of his father at the hands of Claudius); Doubt (Hamlet's hesitation to kill his uncle,
influenced by philosophical and ethical pressures); And moral corruption.

Shakespeare was probably based on the legend of Amleth, preserved by the

13th-century Danish chronicler Saxon Grammaticus in his work Gesta Danorum. In the
sixteenth century it was taken up by the French scholar François de Belle forest and a
lost play, now known as Ur-Hamlet.

Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play and is among the most powerful and influential
tragedies of English literature. It provides a story capable of "having no end, since it
can be adapted and retelled by others"

The role of Ophelia in Hamlet

Ophelia is the youngest daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and future wife of
Hamlet, prince of Denmark. The young woman, throughout the play, is torn between
obedience to her father and the love she feels for Hamlet.

If we analyze the language used by Hamlet when addressing Ophelia, we can be aware
of the mistreatment to which it is subjected and, at the same time, we can extrapolate
the expressions used by Hamlet in relation to the vision that the society had of the
women. She is the reflection of the situation to which the women were subjected in
their time.

Ophelia, is a beautiful, loving and tender woman who reflects women in the 16​th
century, in other words, women who were controlled by men and who could not make
their own decisions. As I said before, she is under protection and stuck in a patriarchal
society. She receives orders from his brother and father though they are said in a softly
way: “if it be so,-as so ‘is put on me, and that in a way of caution, I must tell you, you
do not understand yourself as clearly as it behoves my daughter and your honour”.
(Polonius. 1.3.94-97) What seems a warning is, in fact, a scolding. She, undoubtedly,
shows her obedient character “I shall obey my lord” (Ophelia. ​1.3.136), or ​“As you did
command, I did repel his letters and denied his access to me” ​(Ophelia ​2.1 107-108).
Furthermore, she is treated as if she were an object; she is used as if she were a bait in
order to know Hamlet’s madness reason: “At such a time, I’ll lose my daughter to him”
​ olonius 2.2. 162).
(P

Talking of patriarchal society, in the tragedies, where the patriarchal world is

more oppressive, women are sometimes able to do more but they talk less to each
other. In Shakespeare’s tragic world this self-expression for women is blocked. Ophelia
and Gertrude, despite their similarities in temper, submission and pain, are separated
from one another by ​‘a setting of corrupt politics, as well as by their own
self-absorption’.​ However, Gertrude seems to feel sympathy and compassion for
Ophelia when the young woman becomes insane and then she dies​. (​ Carole Mckewin
127, ​The Woman’s Part)​ .

Ophelia fights against the impossibility of being married with Hamlet and
sometimes her desire seems to be true but destiny prevails and the tragedy happens.
Ophelia’s death according to Gaston Bachelard Traces: “Drowning becomes the truly
feminine death in the dramas of literature and life, one which is a beautiful immersion
and submersion in the female element. Water is the profound and organic symbol of
the liquid woman whose eyes are so easily drowned in tears, as her bodies the
repository of blood, amniotic fluid, and milk”. ​In other words, Ophelia is a drowned
woman in her own emotions. Additionally, despite losing her restraint, she sings about
sexual love:

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's Day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more’ (Act 4.5.48-55)

Loreto Todd informs that “Ophelia may lack the tragic dignity of some of
Shakespeare’s other heroines but she inspires pathos in the audience”; ​and no
character in the play has anything bad to say to Ophelia: Gertrude ​praises her after
dead and, unfortunately, when she is dead, Hamlet is free to say that he loved her.
These events show us that Ophelia was the personification of goodness. (Loreto Todd
106).
 Misogyny is present throughout the play, as we are seen previously, but now I
am going to centered in the most misogynist parts: (1.3 5-8) when Laertes explains to
Ophelia that young women are toys, swiftly vagaries ‘not permanent, sweet, and not
lasting’.​ And also his father emphasizes that the virginity is the only thing rewarding in
women: ​“​think yourself as a baby, that you have taken these tenders for true pay,
which are not sterling” (1.3-105-107); ​Prince Hamlet also talks about ‘the main’
function of women, conceive: “Let her no walk I’ the sun: conception is a blessing,/but
as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to ‘t”​(2.2. 184-185).

Ophelia is an obedient daughter who follows the guidelines set by her father at a time
when women had no choice but to obey the man (in this case, the paternal figure).
When his father orders her to stop seeing Hamlet, she replies, "I must obey my lord."
But this is not the only time that Ophelia acts according to her father's wishes, for she
even spies on Hamlet after Claudio had asked Polonius and this to his own daughter.
This shows that as a woman she cannot make her own decisions, because above all
else will be the male figure who controls her.

The young Ophelia is a reflection of delicacy, sweetness and lyricism. She is a pure
character (in front of so much degradation); is the incarnation of love (in the face of
hatred). Ophelia is the female character as complex as Hamlet. It has aroused opposing
views in critical studies: either as a figure representing delicate and romantic love, or
as the image of calculating and sensual love. His madness - real, not feigned - and his
death, reveal a sincere, deep and passionate love towards Hamlet.

Hamlet, after rejecting Ophelia’s love, shows an image of men interested in sex (as
Laertes and Polonius told Ophelia). We interpreted that with a sexual point of view
because in Elizabethan slang “nothing” was a term for the female genitalia and in this
context, that meaning fix perfectly (David Young, 58).

Through the analysis of the speech in Hamlet, we can verify that the words of the
prince of Denmark are loaded with stereotypes related to the consideration that in the
time women were characterized by aspects like the beauty, the weakness, the capacity
to deceive and to cajole men, etc.

Next I contribute a selection of fragments of the play in which the reality of the
patriarchal society is reflected through the language of the characters, which I will
analyze in detail.

HAMLET. - Oh! Oh! Are you honest?

OFELIA. - Sir...

HAMLET: Are you beautiful?

OFELIA: What do you mean by that?

HAMLET. - That if you are honest and beautiful, you should not allow your honesty to
deal with your beauty.

OFELIA. - Can beauty have a better companion than honesty?

HAMLET. - No doubt. The power of beauty will turn honesty into a bailiff, before
honesty manages to give beauty its resemblance. This was once a paradox; but in the
present age it is proven ... I loved you before, Ophelia.

OFELIA. - So you gave me to understand.

Hamlet questions the honesty of Ophelia, reaffirming the idea that women are
calculators and liars by nature, capable of deceiving others (and especially men) to
benefit from a given situation, taking advantage of the other person involved (in this
case Hamlet). Hamlet also argues that women use their charms and beauty to cajole
others, even claiming that the beauty of a woman has the ability to transform honesty
into a bawd.

HAMLET. - If you marry I want to give you this curse in dowry. Even if you are an ice in
chastity, even if you are as pure as snow; you will not be able to rid yourself of slander.
Go to a convent. Bye. But ... listen: if you need to get married, marry a fool, because
the wise men know very well that you turn them into beasts ... To the convent and
soon. Bye.

Hamlet addresses Ophelia with aggression and his words distill hatred towards the
woman who once loved. He describes her as a pure and chaste woman (like snow),
characteristics attributed in the Elizabethan era to every woman who conformed to
the social canons of "good woman." However, there is a clear contrast between these
two qualities and the ability of women to transform men into true beasts.

In this intervention, Hamlet also makes reference to two social realities: the marriage
and the religious life (when he orders her to go to a convent, alternative for a woman
of the time who did not opt ​for marriage).

HAMLET. - I have heard much about your shavings and embellishment. Nature gave
you a face and you two make a different one. With those toys, that short little step,
that childish talk, you pass by innocent and make your own defects graceful.

When Hamlet speaks of shaving and beautifying, it refers to the ointments, makeup,
perfumes and other beauty products that women use to groom themselves, hence
that women are born with a face and transformed by means of their shaves. Indirectly
what Hamlet wants to convey through his words is that women use makeup as a ruse
to be more attractive in the eyes of men and thus to improve their ability to seduce
and cajole.

In addition to mentioning the physical appearance of women, it also describes their

behavior by describing women as beings who base their innocence on a childish way of
speaking and on a slow walk, with short steps. These "feminine" traits, which Hamlet
sees as the faults of a woman, distil a marked machismo, for the woman is seen as a
weak and childish being.

HAMLET. - Look, go to a convent, why should you expose yourself to being the mother
of sinful children? I am moderately good; but when considering some things that I can
accuse me, it would be better if my mother had not given birth to me. I am very proud,
vindictive, and ambitious; with more sins on my head than thoughts to explain them,
fantasy to give them form, nor time to carry them to execution.

After analyzing various fragments of Hamlet we can see that the language used by
Hamlet and Polonius (male characters) is influenced by the mentality of a patriarchal
society in which men dominated women and exercised control over them.

The terms used when addressing Ophelia are linked to her physical (beautiful), her
(honest) psychology and attributes related to sexuality (pure, caste). This terminology
reflects the view of women at the time, considered and treated as a purely sexual
objects, destined to marry in order to bring children to the world and take care of
them.

Although in the Elizabethan period the existence of machismo was not yet spoken,
classical works such as Hamlet show that there was an enormous inequality between
men and women. Thanks to the feminist critique we can make a new analysis of these
works, paying attention to sexist language, the relations between the characters and
the vision that the author himself projects in each character according to its gender.

Hamlet and Ophelia do not stop being victims of the society of its moment, they are
like a window open to a past of which we have not yet been stripped. In order to be
able to speak of a non-sexist language we must first change the mentality of the
people (both men's and women's) by means of education, because our language is the
living image of the society in which we live.

Works Cited

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM. "Hamlet". Traducción de Tomás Segovia. Grupo editorial

Norma. Colección Shakespeare por escritores. Buenos Aires. 2002

Rafter, Denis. “Hamlet y el actor: En busca del personaje”. ”Hamlet, Príncipe de

Dinamarca”
<​https://books.google.es/books?id=FfucuuMAzhcC&printsec=frontcover&hl=es&sourc
e=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false​>.

SANCHEZ-PARDO, ESTHER. ​“Las ficciones de Janet Frame: la locura y el silencio en la

narrativa (auto) biográfica femenina.” e​ n El l​ egado de Ofelia: Textos en la literatura
femenina en la lengua​ i​ nglesa del siglo XX. Editorial Horas y Horas. Madrid. 2001.

Todd, Loreto. ​York Notes on William Shakespeare's Hamlet​. Essex: Longman, 1980.
Print.

Young, David. ​Shakespeare's Middle Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays

Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1993. Print.

Lenz, Carolyn R. S, Gayle Greene, and Carol T. Neely. ​The Woman's Part: Feminist
Criticism of Shakespeare​. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1980. Print.

LEÓN MORENO, Felipe Esteban (2012): ​Hamlet y la mujer en el teatro isabelino,​

Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.

William Shakespeare. Hamlet.​ Literatura Multimedia.

<​http://blog.educastur.es/poesia/2009/03/23/william-shakespeare-hamlet/​>,