Marxist Themes In Shakespeare's Hamlet

When looking at the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, through a Marxist critical lens, there are many Marxist themes that would apply. In Hamlet there is a big difference between the monarchy and the peasants. Even in Hamlet’s time, the high class is treated in a better way than the low class. The royalty members’ poor decisions are easily overlooked or covered up like with Claudius covering up the murder of his brother. Hamlet is the only character that directly hates the monarchy and goes against it, making him more sympathetic to the lower classes. There are characters within the play that are lower class, but they appear to have some privileges associated with the ruling class, and then there are characters where class makes no difference

All the females are oppressed as well and class does not matter. Women were treated as inferior and it did not matter whether the woman was a queen or a peasant. The motif of female oppression plays a big role with all of the females in the play. Hamlet is even guilty of oppressing women whether it is the queen/mother or a common girl/girlfriend because he reduces the women in his life to archetypes—that is, the cunning lover and the frenetic past lover. Hamlet’s oppression of women was a result of his mother’s action to remarry with his uncle and this causes Hamlet to despise and loath women. Though Hamlet has known these women before the death of his father, he is so wrapped up in revenge that he cannot treat them fairly. Hamlet insulted Gertrude by yelling out, “frailty, thy name is woman!” (1.2.150) When Hamlet talks about frailty, he is talking about weakness. Gertrude is the epitome of weakness to Hamlet because of her foolish act of remarrying which Hamlet views as a

It all can be traced back to the murder of his father. This grief Hamlet has worsens his relationship with Gertrude, which makes him feel as though she is letting the murder of her first husband go without mourning. In conversation with the ghost of his father, Hamlet declares, “O most pernicious woman! / O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!” (1.5.112-3). Hamlet is blaming Gertrude as a murderer by calling her a villain, highlighting his disdain of her actions. By focusing on Gertrude’s character instead of Claudius’s villainous nature, Hamlet cannot see the difference in their actions. Hamlet then comes to the conclusion that each of them played a role in the murder. As a result, Gertrude is weak because of the way Hamlet views her as a villain and this view oppresses her because she is put down by her own son, even though Gertrude was not directly involved in the