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Gertrude And Ophelia A Foil Characters In Hamlet

879 Words4 Pages

Patricia Thai
Humanity English IV/CP
Ms Shorey
04/01/2016
Compare Gertrude and Ophelia “Hamlet”, one of the most famous play in the world, was written by the brilliant author William Shakespeare. In this play, there are two main female characters namely Ophelia and Gertrude. Moreover, as foil characters, both of them are also similarly depicted in several ways to generate the masterpiece “Hamlet” to become a classical work.
When it comes to Hamlet, the family love appears as a string that connects both Gertrude and Ophelia to the main character – Hamlet. Gertrude, as a warm-hearted mother who desires a happy family she always finds the way to keep the love with her son by giving him advice: “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, / And let …show more content…

Ophelia is such a typical character representing for Shakespeare’s intelligence that throughout the play, she gradually becomes a smart woman. At the beginning of the play, Ophelia is an obedient daughter who always follows her family’s direction: “I shall obey, my lord” (Act 1, sc 4). However, at the end of the play, Ophelia is aware of everything that happens around her. She gives each person in the court different followers with the different meanings. Her action expresses that she is a clever woman. Moving on to the Queen Gertrude, she is also marked to show how nimble the author is in the way he builds character. As a queen of Denmark, Gertrude seems to be powerful during her dominance. However, she is a weak person that although living her whole life with a guy who killed her husband, she still does not justify his mysterious lie. Otherwise, Gertrude is always a good wife who unthinkably obeys her husband: “I shall obey you” (Act 3, sc 1). Until she realizes that Claudius is a killer, everything is too late once she drinks the poison.
In conclusion, both Ophelia and Gertrude have followed what the society tells them to do and the consequence is obviously the death. Shakespeare creates two female characters to explain the weakness of women who are subservient on the role of men. They have no choice in their lives and always keep the image of the guy they love in the heart till the brink of

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