Incest and Sexism in Hamlet

1034 Words3 Pages

In my readings of Hamlet, sexism was a immense element in the story. It is not fairly unambiguous where the incest comes in and who is involved, but the unorthodox relationships that have taken place shows how things were during the Elizabethan Age, or were they? My goal in this paper is to research the gender roles between the males and females in the story and to prove how women were treated during these times, and to determine who was involved in incest and sexism. The characters in focus will be Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and son of the deceased King Hamlet; Polonius, counselor to Claudius; Laertes, Polonius’ son who has returned home due to King Hamlet’s death; Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother and Queen of Denmark; and Ophelia, daughter of Polonius and the sister of Laertes, also Hamlet’s girlfriend. In theory women during the Elizabethan Age had no power in their homes. In royal families the women are the breeders, they had the responsibility to keep the royal bloodline flowing by having male children to keep the male dominance. “A woman whose job is to represent the family, is doing the traditionally female job of being wife or mother.” (Billig) Gertrude’s role in the play had fairly little significance, besides that she was a mother and wife. She showed no reasons as to why she was in such a rush to remarry after her husband, King Hamlet’s death. Claudius, being the wicked man that he was, may have been so eager to claim the thrown as King that he married the widow to rule Denmark. This whole ordeal of his uncle sleeping with his mother made Hamlet infuriated and ill to his stomach. Hamlet showed his emotions when he said: “That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! Bu... ... middle of paper ... ... the other characters lives that it cost them all their own life. Works Cited Billig, Michael. A Woman's Realm. Talking of the Royal Family. London: Routledge, 1992. 173. Print. Blackmore, Simon Augustine. The Riddles of Hamlet. Boston: Stratford & company, 1917. Shakespeare Online. 2 Aug. 2011. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamlet/opheliaandpolonius.html >. Resetarits, C.R. "Ophelia's Empathic Function". Mississippi Review Vol. 29 no.3 (2001): 215-217 Shmoop Editorial Team. "Hamlet Sex Quotes Page 1." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 1 May 2014. Shmoop Editorial Team. "Laertes in Hamlet." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 2 May 2014. Vives, Juan Luis, and Charles Fantazzi. The education of a Christian woman a sixteenth-century manual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Print.

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