The Weakness of Characters in a Play

According to “Hamlet” a speech stated by Hamlet “Frailty, thy name is woman!”( Act 1, Scene 2, line 146). And in this case the term ‘Frailty’ defines as weakness or a fault resulting from moral weakness. Every single creature in the earth was created with weakness. So, it is natural to have weakness among human characters. On the other hand, it is not something immoral or reprehensible to have weakness in one’s character. No individual can deny the fact that they have weakness because it will make them separate from others. In order to define a person, it is important to judge them by their entire character, not by their weakness. Just like the famous English phrase says ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ it will be wrong to delineate individual just because they have weakness on something. Nevertheless, it is true that the weakness we hold in our character may force us to do many wicked and shameful activities regardless of our true intention. The play “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, superbly demonstrates the logic by the character of Gertrude that it does not matter even if a person has powerful authority, the fidelity that the person may have still can induce him/her to do many kinds of sinful acts. Within this play, Gertrude’s silence is the weakness which characterizes her inability to express her own judgments.

Hamlet’s s mother, Gertrude, the Queen of Denmark married her brother in law, Claudius, after her husband, the previous King, Elder Hamlet, was murdered by Claudius. In reality, many people might consider Queen Gertrude as a blatant, characterless and a licentious woman because of her incestuous marriage to Claudius. If we analyze Gertrude’s character we should spring up with the idea that due to her husband’s sudde...

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...by wickedness. William Shakespeare demonstrated this theory throughout the entire play. We noticed that because of Claudius’s evil plan it affected Gertrude to commit an unrighteous act which made Hamlet more revengeful to kill his father’s murderer. It did not only affect Hamlet and his mother, it also affected Claudius because Claudius ended up falling into his own evil trap. It is visible from the play that no matter how ethical our character is, there are so many evil traps in our way which still can make us do sinful works unless we are very thoughtful about our actions. In conclusion, we must always be careful about what we do, think about the outcome of our action in order to upgrade our moral character.

Works Cited

• Shakespeare, William. “Hamlet”. Responding to Literature (5th edition) ed. Judith A. Stanford. New York: McGraw- Hill, 2006. 244- 357