Insecurity In Hamlet

Like many Shakespeare characters, Gertrude subversively breaks the molds of a woman in the Elizabethan era by having the same amount of ambition and greed as much as any other character, but the difference is she doesn’t have the luxury to outright show it. At the beginning of Hamlet, Claudius reveals that Gertrude and him have married. “Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we (as ’twere with a defeated joy, With an auspicious and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole) Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone, With this affair along. For all, our thanks. Now follows that

In Hamlet’s personal case, this is that he has a personality that follows the lines of a conventional woman. One of his most iconic phrases is “Let me not think on ’t; frailty, thy name is woman!” (Shakespeare 1.2.150). Hamlet’s self hatred and insecurity is so severe he puts an entire gender under the label of frail regardless of any other trait that a woman has. This implies that his insecurities involve not being seen as masculine by his fellow male peers, so in order to compensate he instead berates women constantly and worships men. Hamlet’s role in the play is also very feminine if viewed from an indirect versus direct aggression lens. His entire purpose in the play is to endlessly sacrifice for his father, instead of being self serving like the traditional and ideal male in a patriarchal society. He seems much closer to King Hamlet rather than his mother Gertrude. “Do not forget. This visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose” (3.4.126-127). During the confrontation between Hamlet and Gertrude, Hamlet’s ghost appears to outright remind Hamlet not to murder his own mother out of hatred and betrayal. Not only does this reflect a sharp sense of hatred for women, as Gertrude betrayed Hamlet because she had a sense of ambition, but also the fact that he has such strong emotions that he has hysterical episodes constantly recurring. Hysteria has largely been considered a disease only suffered by women throughout history (112 Tasca). Due to the fact that this was perceived to be true during Shakespeare's life, it is logical to assume that Hamlet’s breakouts into incredibly strong emotions is supposed to be feminine in some