Changing Role of Women in Hamlet by Shakespeare

The role of women has dramatically changed through the ages. Women have gone from being viewed as inferior, always standing in the shadows of men to being able to share the light and stand beside them as equals. It has been a hard battle in which many fought and lost but eventually found the path to equality. During the sixteenth century, women were primarily used as housemaids and mothers; they tended to the work men were above. In the play, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, Ophelia is no exception to the social order. She is seen as a corruption to Hamlet, and a slave to her father’s orders. She is a pure, innocent girl who has been coddled too thoroughly. When faced with devastation, her lack of independence causes her innocence to wilt resulting into the weeds of a madwoman. Ophelia, like most women of Shakespeare’s time, is portrayed as powerless and compliant, much different from how women are viewed today.

The seventeenth century wasn’t a shining moment for women. They were degraded without a voice. Women were often considered slaves to men, who were only there to bare childre...