Summary
Summary Hamlet Family Dynamics
Detailed A* summary of family dynamics in Hamlet
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The following family relationships occur in Hamlet.- Fathers and sons:
Hamlet and Old Hamlet
Polonius and Laertes
Fortinbras and his father
Claudius as substitute father to Hamlet
What is considered natural for these relationships? How do they differ?
AO3 Contextual Interpretation of a family, and gender roles:
#1: Sir Thomas Elyot, ‘The Book Named the Governor’, 1531
A man in his natural perfection is fierce, strong in opinion, covetous of glory,
desirous of knowledge, appetiting by generation to bring forth his semblable.
The good nature of a woman is to be mild, timorous, traceable, benign, of sure
remembrance and shamefast. Divers other qualities of each of them might be
found out, but these be most apparent and for this time sufficient.
#2: John Knox, ‘First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of
Women’, 1558
Weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish: and experience hath declared them
to be inconstant, variable, cruel and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment.
#3: Cornelius a Lapide, ‘Omnes divi pauli Epistolas Commentaria’, 1638
Woman is an excellent ornament of men since she is granted to man not only to
procreate children, and administer the family, but also in possession, as it were,
in dominion, over which the man may exercise his jurisdiction and authority. For
the authority of man extends not only to inanimate things and brute beast, but
also to reasonable creatures that is women and wives.
#4: Julia Briggs, ‘This Stage Play-World’, 1983
The question of a women’s moral equality was as keenly debated in the
Renaissance as their intellectual equality that has been in the 20 th century.
Collections of misogynist sayings and tales were countered with lists and lives of
virtuous women from the Bible and classics. By the 16th century, defence has
come to outnumber attacks, although the majority of the contributors on both
sides were men.
How does Shakespeare present family relationships in ‘Hamlet’? – 200 words
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