Analyzing Hamlet's 'Plight Of The Matron'

Zack Zaleski

Mrs. Heather Marr

AP Literature and Composition, Period 6

6 January, 2015

Plight of the Matron

It would be ideal for Hamlet to be viewed under a gender scope, as under such is where the majority of the problems facing both pro- and antagonists, especially later on, can be found within the play. From various subjects like Hamlet’s Oedipus Complex situation with his mother, his domineering mentality over Ophelia, and Gertrude’s self-loathing at no fault of her own.

Of course, one of the most prominent lines of the whole play, if not an accurate representation of the entirety of the Renaissance, “Frailty, thy name is woman!” (1.2.146) outlines just how Hamlet “goes out of its way to disassociate her [Ophelia’s] epistemological habits

Get thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell. (3.1.11)

The topic of Ophelia’s death, maybe as a result of Claudius and Polonius being consciously aware that they are being consciously aware of during Hamlet and Ophelia’s interchange, can be paralleled with Gertrude’s suicide with all of Hamlet’s male murderers, her relationship with Claudius, as with Hamlet himself and Ophelia, and the suspicious report of Ophelia’s drowning. Gertrude is innocent of claims that she is hastily marrying Claudius out of lust; “rather, the need to secure her roles as monarch, mother, and wife seems the primary catalyst in her decision”. (Loberg 63-64) Therefore, it can be inferred that Gertrude was the cause of Ophelia’s “drowning”, in order to keep the balance of power from becoming too unstable in Gertrude’s eyes, as Ophelia was somebody who presented instability in terms of her [Ophelia’s] relationships with Hamlet and the rest of the male

(4.7.17)

A final cry from Laertes attributes his own tears to the drowning of his Ophelia, though upon the realization that showing sadness is indeed a womanly trait, he forgoes the very thought of grief, and curses Ophelia out of him.

Works Cited

Finkelstein, Richard. “Differentiating Hamlet: Ophelia and the Problems of Subjectivity.” Renaissance and Reformation 21.2 Spring 1997: pp 10-11.

Loberg, Harmonie. “Queen Gertrude: Monarch, Mother, Murderer.” Atenea 24.1 June 2004: pp 59-71.

Shand, G. B. “Realising Gertrude: The Suicide Option.” Elizabethan Theatre XIII. Ed. A. L. Magnusson and C. E. McGee. Toronto: Meany, 1994. p 118.

Kusunoki, Akiko. “‘Oh most pernicious woman’: Gertrude in the Light of Ideas on Remarriage in Early Seventeenth-Century England.” Hamlet and Japan. Ed. Yoshiko Uéno. Hamlet Collection 2. New York: AMS, 1995. pp