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Hamlet A Misogynist Analysis

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Hamlet the misogynist "When a man gives his opinion he is a man. When a woman gives her opinion she is a bitch."- Bette Davis Throughout time society has used woman as a scapegoat for societal issues that have occurred. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare uses character and rhetoric to display how ones hatred and anger are impulsively taken out upon woman, from this the reader learns how misogyny is difficult to acknowledge, but rather easy to practice. To begin with, Shakespeare uses rhetoric to illustrate how Hamlet is a misogynist. Throughout the play Hamlet refers to his mother as an incestuous, cold hearted, whore, whose actions are only defined by her sexual desires. This was displayed during his soliloquy when he …show more content…

Hamlet views Ophelia as a naive and ignorant girl who is nothing but Polonius and Claudius's puppet. This was revealed when Hamlet said "God has given you one face and you make yourself another. . You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance." (III, i, 143-146) In this quote Hamlet knows that Ophelia is spying on him for Polonius and Claudius. This provokes him to say that god gives women one face, but they use make up to paint on another one. This quote suggest that Hamlet sees woman as naive and gullible creatures, as he sees Ophelia as nothing but an object that is owned by her father, as she is helping him with all of his dirty work. Hamlet believes that woman cannot be trusted as they have are deceiving. He also sees Ophelia as a grown women who is unable to make her own decisions. Hamlet is utterly disgusted by how feeble Ophelia is as she was following her father's scheme. Hamlet once again fails to understand that Ophelia much like himself is only trying to stay loyal to her father, much like what he is doing himself. In addition, Hamlet blames woman for giving birth to such evil and deceiving men like Claudius and himself. When he was talking to Ophelia he told her "Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my

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Ophelia’s character went through quite a large transformation. In the play her father tells her that she is to stay away from Hamlet and she readily agrees. In the movie Ophelia doesn’t disagree with her father but she also doesn’t agree just to please him. This shows that Ophelia isn’t easily persuaded, even by her own father. Despite her father’s warning about Hamlet, Ophelia met with him in secret at her apartment until her father found out.

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Ophelia and Hamlet’s relationship fall apart causing Hamlet’s opinion of Ophelia to “...transform from what it is so bawd than the force of honesty/ can translate beauty into his likeness” (III. 1. 114-115) and is now feeling betrayed. Their bittersweet relationship was only a distraction to Hamlet, he had a mission to get revenge and at this point Hamlet was ready to get everything out of his way to do it. Hamlet knew Polonius was using Ophelia to spy on him so he took advantage of the situation to accuse her as a “breeder of sinners” (II.I.123) only helping Polonius with his theory of his madness. Hamlet define Ophelia by her sexuality, to Hamlet she was a whore.

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Only after Ophelia’s death is when Hamlet recognizes his ignorance, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers, if you added all their love together, [it] couldn’t match mine.” (V. i. 249-250). Hamlet clearly had a deep love for her that no other could compare to, but his inability to

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Misogyny, by definition, is the dislike towards women for a particular motive. In William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, Shakespeare elucidates his misogynistic tendencies through the characters in the play—particularly Hamlet. The role of women in Hamlet is little short of misogynistic as Hamlet consistently displays throughout the play evidence of misogynistic behavior through his views of women being cruel, adulterous, and frail. Fundamentally, there are merely two female characters in Hamlet; Ophelia and Gertrude. Though Ophelia does not intend on wounding Hamlet emotionally, she does so for being submissive to her father which conforms to the misogynistic attitude of women being powerless and pathetic as Ophelia is under control by

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Ophelia is blinded by her love for Hamlet, as she undoubtedly believes he is in love with her and is absolutely heartbroken to find out that he is not. She was invested in their relationship, even believing that they would end up married one day, and to find out that he no longer loves her leaves her humiliated and depressed. She feels betrayed, rejected, deceived, used, and thrown away by Hamlet, which is when her demeanor shifts and she begins to go mad. Furthermore, critic Barbara Smith clarifies that another

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Hamlet just started to use the girl whom he probably liked in his game; like Claudius and Ophelia’s own father did too. It was obvious the character did not know much about the real situation that provided the basis for rulers’ change. She jut obeyed to her father and brother, as a decent daughter and sister, and wanted to understand why her potential boyfriend started to act so strangely. Hamlet demonstrated Ophelia the full power of his talent to simulate madness after his “to be or not to be” monologue. His comments about the value of honesty and beauty and pleas for Ophelia’s move to the nunnery could be first factors that affected girl’s mental

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Ophelia's and Hamlet Relationship  In "No Fear Shakespeare, Hamlet" Ophelia is just an innocent victim that acts on what people tell her to do and don’t respond to what she want. Hamlet and Ophelia's love was real and not yearn, but she let people manipulate her thoughts. When you love somebody they will do whatever it takes to protect and support their loved one while Ophelia plays the victim of loving Hamlet.   In the beginning of "Hamlet" Ophelia was convinced by Polonius and Laertes that Hamlet does not love you he is just using you, and that you need to distance yourself and not give all your attention to Hamlet.

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The misogyny (which is also present in other Shakespeare’s plays) can be best seen in Hamlet’s line "Frailty; thy name is woman." In 18th and 19th century novels, the predominance of male characters is also evident. Daniel Defoe puts a man (Robinson Crusoe) on a desolate island, Jonathan Swift

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