The Tragedy of Hamlet's Women

Paper Summary:

A look at the role of the women characters in "Hamlet": Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, and Ophelia, Hamlet's lover. It discusses how the play's plot skirts around them, and finally, their tragic ending in the play. It explains that, in the beginning, these female characters seem flat, yet over the course of the narrative, they take on a critical physical importance because of the feelings men have for them emotionally, and more importantly, physically.

From the Paper:

"(As Imagined by an Englishman) "Hamlet" is often thought of as a drama primarily about one man's relationship with a dead father and a living and murderous stepfather. According to the Bedford Introduction to Literature, one of the critical components of any story, drama or novel, is that of "Plot," forming one of the dominant subject headings of this basic guide. The plot of "Hamlet" could be summarized with only two cursory mentions to its main female characters. It might go something along the lines of "Gertrude marries Claudius. Laertes vows revenge upon Hamlet because of the madness of his sister." However, two of the most memorable characters in Hamlet remain that of Gertrude and Ophelia, Hamlet's mother, and Hamlet's "sweetheart," "girlfriend," or "fiancee," depending on what character you talk to at what juncture of the play. They are memorable despite their peripheral nature to the bare-bones narrative of "Hamlet" and their relatively flat character structure. Ophelia's mad scene, where she distributes flowers to numerous members of the court with instructions about what they mean is one of the most iconic images of the play, equally as important in its own right, as Hamlet sitting in the graveyard, holding Yorik's skull."

More papers on The Tragedy of Hamlet's Women:

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• Essay # 18038 : "The Role of Women in Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
• Comparison Essay # 58064 : "Madness in "Hamlet", "Macbeth," and "King Lear"

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