women

• Though there are only two female characters in the play - Ophelia and Gertrude - the play still explores the difficult struggles and unfair fates women have suffered throughout history
• the play, written in the 17th century, a time when women were forbidden to appear onstage, then set in the Middle Ages, Hamlet exposes the disadvantage and prejudices against women
• these prejudices narrowed or even blocked off choices available to women, no matter the origin of birth
• Hamlet himself is obsessed over the two female characters of the play, but at the same time expressed his contempt for their actions - actions that Shakespeare argues, actions they are resulted to do to just survive in the cruel and misogynistic world
• Ophelia is mostly silent and submissive to assertive mal figures, and her role in the play is largely passive up until her madness
• the adultery and incest of Gertrude are a focus of Hamlets anger, yet Gertrude is still not presented as equal to the powerful feelings she expresses
• critics have long recognised there is a problem with the way Shakespeare presents the women in Hamlet
• critics have highlighted the ‘silencing‘ of Gertrude and Ophelia. Shakespeare if not deliberately silencing his women in the play, doesn’t give them very much to say
• Women in Shakespeares day married young and spent most of their active years with children, managing the home and looking after the children.
• very few women were academically educated, none were allowed to attend university, and the rights in the law were severely limited
• any property a woman did posses became her husbands
• women had little to say in the government of the country, ruled by men
• Feminist critics set out to challenge and change assumptions about gender, showing us how sexual stereotyping and assumptions about gender role are frequent
• feminist critics also focus on the marginalisation of women, women being denied a voice
• both Gertrude and Ophelia have much less stage time and far fewer lines