Sexist Hamlet Understandable? The true tragedy of Hamlet is the way he viewed and criticized women. The Prince of Denmark seemed to have a nasty attitude towards women; if only they had lessons on sexism in the 16th century. Towards the end of the 16th century woman were given the basic privilege to learn how to read and write. However, many women did not learn anything past the very basics of reading and writing. Around the 16th century woman didn't have any rights and were often mistreated. Hamlet makes many remarks about women and it shows not only Hamlet’s view, but society's view on women during this time. At one point Hamlet is enraged by the things he has recently discovered and in a bit of rage he exclaims, “ Frailty, thy name is woman!” (Shakespeare 1.2.46) In this moment Hamlet is referring to his mother, and calls her morally weak. In the scene before this Hamlet is confronted with a ghost whom he thinks may be his late father. The ghost tells hamlet how his father was murdered by his uncle; the same person who Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, decided to remarry shortly after Hamlet's father's death. Now many people may say that Hamlet had a right to react the way he did given that he was still in shock with the recent news he had received, but did Hamlet have other accounts of casual …show more content…
This has lots of symbolism of how Hamlet feels that women will destroy a man until death and even after death. It could also symbolize how a women is still alive after destroying and killing a man, and how he finds that unfair. It is here that we see Hamlet has truly lost all hope for women. “Hamlet's attitude toward women reveals more about him (and maybe men in general) than it does about women's true nature.”(Cook 1) this author seems to think that Hamlet’s actions are very sexist and he had no excuses for the way he