Hamlet Research Paper - Frailty, Thy Name Is Woman?

"Frailty, Thy Name is Woman?"

Open any Playbill from within the last century, flip through its glossy, text filled pages, passing over the umpteenth sponsor advertisements and one will come to the cast page; filled with the smiling headshots of the company's men and women. However, in William Shakespeare's Hamlet the characters, and furthermore the main characters, are dominantly male--appropriate considering the male supremacy that dictated Elizabethan society. Whilst men drafted and passed laws in the legislature and played the roles of both Adam and Eve upon the stage, females were considered weak, leeches surviving off the power and assistance from men. Shakespeare utilizes the roles of Ophelia and Gertrude to expose the extremes of the female Elizabethan stereotype and depict both the leech's vulnerability and stealthy empowerment.

Ophelia's manipulation by men highlights the standard of females as tools during the Elizabethan era where the ideal woman was subservient and dependent on men. According to Shakespeare critic Jacques Lacan, Ophelia is used as a "piece of bait" (Showalter), firstly used by Hamlet through which he displays his madness and alleviate his own insanity. When Ophelia is originally introduced to the audience her own decent into insanity has just only been commenced, brought on by the frightening visit by a prematurely mad Hamlet. "Lord Hamlet, with his doubtlet all unbraced; No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd, ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle; Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other; And with a look so piteous in purport as if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors, (II, i, 78-83)" (Shakespeare, William). Hamlet holds Ophelia and her rejection of his supposed love as the cause to his insanity when in reality Hamlet is distraught over the murder of his father by his uncle and furthermore, his mothers following marriage. Unbeknownst to Ophelia however, she is manipulated into feeling guilty for a fault that is not of her own cause and soon after in Act 3 Scene 1, Ophelia's position as "bait" used by man is only further substantiated. Polonius and the King employ Ophelia to test Hamlet, hoping the conversation between the two will assist the men in pinpointing the origins of Hamlets madness; Ophelia-a mere pawn in the politics of men and "used by Hamlet as a medium to convey his false madness to the spying Polonius and Claudius in order to throw off their attempts to find the cause for his madness," (Showalter). The mere fact that Ophelia becomes "a causality of the oppressive male-dominated court who is driven to destruction because she is...used as a pawn in Claudius' efforts to control Hamlet," (Klett) and by Hamlet vice-versa illustrates the careless exploitation of Ophelia's vulnerability.

Similar to Ophelia, Gertrude's own submission to male manipulation, more specifically the swift marriage to Claudius, emphasizes her reliance on a male partner. During the Elizabethan era the main goal for females was to get married and have children, even for those born into or with a power position. Gertrude, being born into the royal bloodline of Denmark, was no exception, her goals lining up with that of society's standards. "King Hamlet was ambitious and his marriage to young Princess Gertrude advanced that ambition, so that she was, as a teen-ager, a pawn--as I think women tended to be, especially high-born women--a pawn in the hands of men. Her father liked Hamlet and wanted her to marry him." (Juan). Not only is Gertrude's first marriage the product of a political scheme constructed at the hands of men, but she once more falls prey to the manipulative hands of Claudius, who lusts for the crown following Elder Hamlet's death and does so by wedding Gertrude.