FEMINISM IN HAMLET
Brown and Bev
REPRESENTING OPHELIAELAINE SHOWALTER
 Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet
 Shakespeare offers very little information from which to imagine a past for
Ophelia
 Cultural links between femininity, female sexuality, insanity, and representation
 Recurring subject in literature, popular culture, and painting.
 Ophelia is most persistently presented in terms of symbolic meanings
 The female characters appear as depictions of the social beliefs of Shakespeare’s
era. As attitudes changed and time progressed, new beliefs began to surface on
the strength of femininity in Shakespeare’s texts.
SYMBOLISM
 “Ophelia’s virginal and vacant white is contrasted with Hamlet’s scholar’s garb, his “suits
of solemn black.”
 Flowers: ‘Discordant double images of female sexuality’: Innocent blossoming and
whorish contamination.
 In giving away her flowers she is symbolically ‘deflowering herself’.
 Drowning: Associated with the feminine, with female fluidity
 Gaston Bachelard: “Drowning…. becomes the truly feminine death in the dramas of
literature and life…. a beautiful immersion and submersion in the female element.
 Water: Profound, organic symbol of the liquid woman whose eyes are so easily drowned in
tears…”
 “blank page to be written over or on by the male imagination.”
Various depictions of
Ophelia’s suicide
VARIOUS REPRESENTATIONS OF OPHELIA
 Romantics: “a character almost too exquisitely touching to be dwelt upon.”
 The point was to ‘look at her’.
 Transformation into an objet d’art
 Response to madness was an ‘embrace’.
 “poor Ophelia/Divided from herself and her fair judgement/Without the which we are
picture.” (Claudius’ lament)
 Augustans: Represent Ophelia as music
 The response to madness was denial
 Victorians: account of hysteria or mental breakdown in adolescence
 A period of sexual instability, was regarded as ‘risky’ for women’s mental health.
FEMINIST VIEWS
 “Protested against the “insipid little creature” of criticism, and advocated a strong
and intelligent woman destroyed by the heartlessness of men.”
 Women’s paintings: depicted as an inspiring, even sanctified emblem of
righteousness.
 Discourse of the 1970’s: Ophelia’s madness as ‘protest’ and ‘rebellion’.
 Depicted as “a heroine, a powerful figure who rebels against the family and the
social order; and the hysteric who refuses to speak the language of the patriarchal
order.”
DEPENDENCE ON MEN
 Both leading female characters in Hamlet, Ophelia and Gertrude, live oppressed
lives in the patriarchal society of Denmark.
 Many opinions are held of them as weak and frail, Hamlet quoting in his first
soliloquy. “Frailty, thy name is woman.’ (ACT I, SCENCE II)
 Hamlet’s anger towards his mother propel him to characterise all woman as weak
and unreliable.
 Feminist views would say that Ophelia acts as a strong female presence as she is
used as a ‘pawn’ by Hamlet, shadowed in the society of male dominance.
 In offering flowers to Laertes, Claudius and Gertrude she symbolically depicts
their characters showing her knowledge of the state of society and her awareness
of the characters emotions and actions.
THE FINAL SCENE
 In Act V Scene II, the performance reaches a climax with the death of all key
characters.
 Hamlet and Laertes battle in a fencing match, a show of masculinity.
 Laertes’ sword is lined with a poisoned tip and Claudius has prepared a poisoned
glass of wine.
 Gertrude, in a show of strength takes up the cup and drinks against the orders of
her husband, the king…. “I will, my lord. I pray you, pardon me.”
QUOTES
 Frailty, thy name is woman. (ACT I, SCENE II)
 O God, a beast that wants a discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer ...
O, most wicked speed to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! (ACT I, SCENE II)
 Get thee to a nunnery. (ACT III, SCENE I)
 God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. (ACT III, SCENE I)
 “He is dead and gone lady” (ACT IV, SCENE V)
 Ophelia states the play ‘The Murder of Gonzago’ is ‘brief’, to which Hamlet responds… “As woman’s
love” (ACT III, SCENE II)