Essay
Women in Hamlet A* essay
A* OCR A level essay: "‘The women in this play have no power and voice of their own." To what extent do you agree with this view?
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‘The women in this play have no power and voice of their own’. To whatextent do you agree with this view?
The famous phrase “frailty thy name is woman” spoken by Hamlet that has
much resonance throughout the play. It is true that both Ophelia and Gertrude
do appear to be weak in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, morally fragile, easily
controlled and cast merely to serve the presentation of the male characters.
Anna Brownell supports this, stating that women in the play are “without
agency to resist, a will to act, or strength to endure”, and are thus portrayed as
inherently weak, easy to influence and void of influence themselves. However, it
could be argued that this opinion is too definitive, and that both female
characters do exert some form of power or agency, in their sexuality, mental
state or affiliations: they are not entirely men’s pawns.
It is true that Ophelia certainly seems to have little or no power or voice of
her own, being at the mercy of her father, Claudius and, of course, Hamlet. To
her father Polonius she states she does “not know..what I should think”,
allowing him full control over her mentality, clear evidence of her weakness.
She is utterly obedient to him, stating “I shall obey”, agreeing not to continue
her relationship with Hamlet, expressing her adherence to his rule by stating
that she “did repel his (Hamlet’s) letters”. It is also Claudius who exerts control
over her, scheming a plan to verify the nature of Hamlet’s madness of which
she is the pawn. Hamlet’s behaviour towards her another indication of her lack
of power, and the weakness with which she is viewed. Hamlet cruelly scathes
“get thee to a nunnery”, a clear example of men’s ability to command and
control women, whilst his lewd jokes, such as “that’s a fair thought to lie
between maids' legs”, show an absolute disregard of her emotional response.
Yet it is Ophelia’s meek responses that truly express the weakness of women
in the play: merely utters “I think nothing, my lord” or “Ay, my lord”, showing
that either she has or is not allowed to express any sort of authority or
offence to his words. Instead she must comply. She is thus struck by madness,
exhibiting “how someone can be driven mad by having her inner feelings
misrepresented, not responded to, or acknowledged only through chastisement
and repression” (David Levernz). Her weakness is doubly layered by her
position within the play. As David Levernz states, “everyone has used her”, and
this has a constructive relevance in that she is “valued only for the roles that
further other people’s plots”. “We can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia,
but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet” (Lee Edwards) and our
prime concern about her character what she tells us about Hamlet. This is
explicit evidence of her subjugation and of female’s as pawns for men, especially
evident in the weakness and emotional fragility expressed by Ophelia in the
RSC version of ‘Hamlet’. This frailty comes to a climax with her death,
described with florid language connoting the delicacy stereotypical of
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