The Poor Treatment of Women in Hamlet
One of the main themes explored in Hamlet is the nature of the human psyche and how it interacts with themes such as mortality and madness. However, two of the play’s main characters, Gertrude and Ophelia, are given secondary roles in this analysis; throughout the play, the characters of the two women are developed only slightly, and most, if not all, of these slight developments are related to their relationships with the male characters. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the only female characters, Gertrude and Ophelia, are portrayed as objects to fuel the men’s sexual desires and are excluded from the play’s exploration of the human psyche.
Hamlet was written during the Elizabethan era, a period that encompassed an extremely patriarchal society. Therefore, women’s roles and identities in the home and in society existed under the jurisdiction of their fathers and, once they came of age, their husbands. Generally, young women were seen as tools to gain power and prestige; alliances were often formed between powerful families by means of arranged marriages. Furthermore, the families of the women to be married were expected to provide a dowry to the husband, and, once married, women’s roles were reserved to the household; wives were expected to provide childcare and take responsibility for all domestic duties (Alchin). Although Ophelia and Gertrude likely were not tasked with many domestic chores due to their wealth and status, they existed in a society that expected them to be subservient to men, and therefore were not given the opportunity to express their true feelings and desires (Shakespeare). Rather, Elizabethan women such as Ophelia and Gertrude who were perceived to be too outspoken or brash were labeled as “harlots”, women who were open with their mouths and therefore likely to be open with their bodies (Speiss). Clearly, Elizabethan society was restrictive of women in that they were often not permitted to express their opinions through verbal communication or strive for the same educational or career goals as men.
Linda Bamber defines the Elizabethan woman as “a vis-á-vis man”, going on to describe the feminine identity as one that contains “a principle of Otherness…. Unlike and external to the Self, which is male” (Fischer). This quote perfectly captures the crux of Gertrude and Ophelia’s roles in the play, as the two women are always discussed as objects in a sexual or romantic context; never are their thoughts or desires as human beings a focal point of the plot.
For example, Ophelia’s sole purpose in the plot of Hamlet is to serve as Hamlet’s love interest, and all of the scenes in which she appears are focused on her relationship with Hamlet (Shakespeare). Furthermore, Ophelia’s character personifies two popular philosophies of the Elizabethan era in regard to the treatment of women: the ideas of famed authors Petrarch and Ovid. Petrarch, a 14th century Italian poet, revolutionized lyrical poetry in the sense that his poems often placed their female subjects on a proverbial pedestal. He used descriptive phrases such as “heavenly beauty” and “vivid blue eyes” to give an almost otherworldly essence to his subjects (Petrarch). He often objectified his subjects, particularly his unattainable lover Laura, as unreal and almost divine, therefore separating them from men and normalizing the portrayal of women as only objects of pleasure and beauty (Olivas). On the contrary, Ovid, a Roman poet, used his literary and scholarly prowess to advocate for the sexual objectification of women, as opposed to Petrarch’s romantic objectification (Kenney). One of his most famous works, Ars Amatoria, discusses primal animal behaviors in relation to psychological theories; he discussed the human’s innate need to use and subsequently discard its female lovers. In general, one theme was manifested in most of Ovid’s works: the idea that women are sexual objects to be used and discarded, and that they have no purpose beyond sexual gratification and reproduction (Poetry In Translation). Both of these ideologies expressed by Petrarch and Ovid align with the idea of women’s roles held by the Elizabethan society in general and represent perfectly the role of Ophelia in Hamlet. Another interesting point regarding Ophelia’s role in the play is that, when analyzing the dynamic between Ophelia and Hamlet, it is obvious that without Ophelia, Hamlet’s story would still be complete, but without Hamlet, Ophelia would serve no purpose in the play. While it is true that Hamlet is the main character and therefore has a more developed background and personality, it is suspicious that Ophelia is not assigned any traits that develop her character outside of her relationship with Hamlet. While the latter has a complex personality and a rich history that is thoroughly discussed throughout the plot, Ophelia exists only to fuel Hamlet’s madness and serve as his love interest (Edwards). Overall, the character of Ophelia serves only the role of “love interest” in Hamlet; her character aligns with the demeaning anti-feminist ideologies of Petrarch and Ovid and is fully reliant on Hamlet in order to survive within the plot of the play as a whole; thus, readers are not given reliable evidence from which to draw conclusions about Ophelia’s psychological structure, which is one of the main themes of Hamlet.
Moreover, Gertrude’s character is also often belittled in the play due to her female identity; she serves as the “scapegoat” of the story by taking the brunt of the ridicule over King Hamlet’s death and Hamlet’s ensuing descent into madness. Polonius, Ophelia’s father, argues that the greatest social crime that a woman could commit was promiscuity and unfaithfulness; this idea reflects that of the Elizabethan society as a whole, and because of this mindset, Gertrude takes much of the blame for the madness of her son, Hamlet. When the ghost of King Hamlet visits young Hamlet, he persuades him that Gertrude fell victim to Claudius’ lust, causing Claudius to kill the King, and as a result, Hamlet becomes obsessed with her alleged promiscuity and blames her for the death of his father (Shakespeare). This progression of blame reflects a common Elizabethan social trend that is criticized by many feminists: women are often blamed for sexual promiscuity (Henderson). Overall, because of her gender, Gertrude plays the role of scapegoat in the story by taking the blame for Hamlet’s madness over his father’s death.
However, although many of the aforementioned interpretations about Ophelia and Gertrude have been made and published by feminist critics, all of them were derived from the male-centered dialogue and plotline of Hamlet. This idea comprises the second manifestation of the poor treatment of women in Hamlet, as any existing feminist criticism or literary analysis must have been made using the male characters’ words, actions, thoughts, and feelings as direct evidence. In the example of Gertrude’s role as the play’s scapegoat, her guilt and participation in the murder of King Hamlet are assumed through the conversations between Hamlet and his father, although readers should be reminded that she existed in a patriarchal society. She never had the opportunity to speak for herself. Readers learn of Gertrude’s actions through the words of Hamlet and other male characters. For example, during Hamlet’s exchange with the Ghost, Gertrude is described as a “wanton widow” and a “lustful woman”. Because readers learn about the Queen through this exchange, they are led to believe that she is inadvertently to blame for the King’s death, even though she is never given the chance to explain herself (Shakespeare). Similarly, in Richard Levin’s analysis of the treatment of Gertrude at the hands of the male characters, he claims that, by placing the dialogue in the hands of Hamlet and King Hamlet, two unreliable narrators, Shakespeare removes all objectivity from the accounts of what transpired between Claudius and Gertrude. Levin argues that because King Hamlet and Hamlet both perceive to have been wronged by Gertrude, they are unable to accurately portray the events of the alleged affair or King Hamlet’s suspicious death (Levin). As a result, readers learn of the possible course of events through a biased lens, one that also completely excludes the voice of Gertrude, who is perhaps the most important character in the narrative. Overall, Hamlet’s unreliable narrators such as King Hamlet and Hamlet establish a sense of ethos through their dialogue, leading readers to accept their accounts of what transpired as fact, effectively disregarding the point of view of Gertrude and removing her completely from the overarching analysis of the human psyche that Shakespeare aims to achieve.
In conclusion, while this exclusion of the female point of view was not unusual for the Elizabethan era, it has proved to be the basis for much criticism in modern times, as excluding women from a narrative in which they play a main role is seen as sexist and unacceptable. Overall, Hamlet’s only female characters, Ophelia and Gertrude, are subject to poor treatment in the sense that they are viewed as sexual and romantic objects to be taken advantage of by men and their points of view are largely excluded from the play’s narrative and Shakespeare’s analysis of the human psyche and factors that induce madness.