Mistreatment Of Women In Hamlet And Mondays Not Coming

“Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of those who lose a loved one will experience complicated grief” (Begin Within). Although the stories of Hamlet and Mondays not Coming vary in countless ways, there are deeper connections to be identified when it comes to themes. Both authors use their characters' actions to portray themes of grief and mistreatment of women. The ability to relate to books written in a completely new era shows that the writing of Shakespeare is classic and the human basis of Hamlet is very versatile. As characters explicitly or indirectly display these themes their attitudes show similarities, the main characters of each of these stories go through grief and it consumes them. Contrary to this, only the main character of Mondays

The showcase of mistreatment of women in Hamlet is very clear and comes from Hamlet himself numerous times. In this story mistreatment emerges from Hamlet’s deteriorating mental state. When his father died at the hands of his uncle Claudius he began being paranoid. Hamlet’s distrust increased when his mother married Claudius very quickly after his father died. Hamlet started pushing more people in his life away. This led to him mistreating his girlfriend and mother. While Hamlet dealt with the fact that his mother married Claudius he comes to the conclusion that she betrayed him and his father. His feelings come off very strongly and he goes on to express them to her, “Oh women! You are so weak!, even before she had broken in the shoes she wore to his funeral, crying like crazy—even an animal would have mourned its mate longer than she did!—there she was marrying my uncle, my father’s brother, who’s about as much like my father as I’m like Hercules. Less than a month after my father’s death, even before the tears on her cheeks had dried, she remarried.” (1.2.149-154). It is clear through this dialogue that Hamlet lacks understanding and compassion toward his mother. He immediately blames the marriage on her rather than acknowledging the fact that she was grieving. The marriage took both people and Claudius took advantage of her vulnerable state. In Mondays not Coming there was also a strong recurrence of blaming the young girls in the story. In school Claudia Coleman and her friend Monday were not very popular. They were often mistreated by men and women in school and other aspects of their lives. There were many events that could fall under this theme. The girls were treated with disrespect often and their concerns seemed to be brushed off. They had to deal with the same lack of