Note: PLEASE do not use this or me as an academic source.  This is NOT peer-reviewed.  Also, for brevity’s sake, I have written this post with the understanding that the reader has read the work in question.

For my first saunter into literary analysis, I thought I’d turn to one of my all-time favorites, and one of the more popular standards of English lit: Hamlet.  A lot has been said about this play, but the fun thing about literature is that there’s always more to discuss.  So let’s focus on the characters in Hamlet that have historically gotten less attention: the ladies, Ophelia and Gertrude.  Before we get started, I’m going to give a few brief explainers on some fancy literary jargon just so that we’re all on the same page.

First off, this reading, since it specifically focuses on gender dynamics and prioritizes the perspectives of female characters, is a feminist analysis.  This doesn’t necessarily refer to the social movement of feminism, though it is informed by feminist theory. Essentially, this is an understanding of the role the patriarchy and politics of gender take in shaping both literary worlds and the depictions of female characters.  Think of theory as a magnifying glass that gives us a better grasp on the work as a whole by zooming in on one element of it. 

Now, I’ll go ahead and make it clear that this is by no means a definitive reading.  Reading is inherently subjective, and there’s really no such thing as an authoritative stance on Hamlet or any work.  We’ll never know what Shakespeare actually intended; even if we did, it wouldn’t really matter.  The only thing that matters is the text, and what we can mine from it.  It’s with all this in mind that I’ll get started.

Ophelia, Hamlet, and Gender and Class Privilege

It’s often been noted that Ophelia’s storyline bears quite a few similarities to Hamlet’s.  Both lose their father, either fake or succumb to insanity, and both die tragically.  The key difference between the two, however, is the agency they possess.  Though Hamlet’s options are limited, and external forces affect his actions, his fate is ultimately tied to the decisions he makes.  Meanwhile, the patriarchal world Ophelia lives in strips her of any control.  She cannot play an active role in her own tragedy, much less her life.

Consider the difference between how much they both speak.  At this point, Hamlet is pretty infamously long-winded, even in the soliloquy where he laments, “break my heart, for I must hold my tongue” (1.2.164)2 .  Hamlet also uses his “words, words, words” to full effect. He’s witty, clever, and playful with his language, not to mention extremely effective.  Remember how quickly he convinces everyone that he’s gone insane?  It’s no coincidence that some of Shakespeare’s most famous lines belong to Hamlet, or that many of them are from his soliloquies.

That’s because soliloquies are absolutely crucial to the fabric of tragedies.  They clarify character’s actions and create sympathy for characters that, on the outside, seem pretty awful.  Tragedies only work by making us understand that these protagonists are, or were, good people: that’s what makes a tragedy tragic.

Ophelia, however, only gets one chance to speak to the audience, in a soliloquy that isn’t even really a soliloquy (both Claudius and Polonius spy on her during it).  The speech also has little to do with her internal life, and much more to do with her apparently insane ex-boyfriend who just assaulted and verbally berated her. 

Both internally and externally, Ophelia doesn’t have the luxury to say what she pleases.  For one, it’s hard to pontificate as you helplessly watch your world implode around you.  Also, as Laertes and Polonius make clear, Ophelia must be extremely careful of what she says and does.  Both her class and gender make her standing in society precarious.  Though language, a means of communicating one’s internality, can be carelessly wielded by Hamlet, it must be carefully guarded by Ophelia.  All that being said, Ophelia does finds ways to consider and critique through the observation her safety necessitates.1

[Ophelia] cannot play an active role in her own tragedy, much less her life.

In her soliloquy, for instance, Ophelia presents her observations of Hamlet’s past and present self, and compares them to agonizing effect.  Ophelia shows she is not only a keen observer, but able to draw conclusions from her observations as well.  Both she and Gertrude realize that Hamlet’s “madness” stems from the loss of his father, while Polonius and Claudius incorrectly pin it on Ophelia’s spurning him.  Though male authority figures dismiss her, Ophelia shows herself to have a much keener understanding of the world and its players than they realize.  Using the straightforward language of observation, Ophelia reveals feelings and conclusions in a coded manner, thereby circumnavigating a world designed to silence her.

Ophelia’s Madness: Liberating or Tragic?

While we’re on the topic of Ophelia, I’d like to touch on her madness in Act IV.  Usually, feminist readings see it as liberatory. Ophelia finally gets the chance to speak her mind (albeit in a still coded manner) and societal pressures no longer chain her.  I don’t particularly like this reading, though. 

Ophelia’s madness is anything but joyful; it is brutally tragic.  While Hamlet’s witty and quirky in madness, Ophelia is elegiac and lost.  This isn’t a woman liberating herself; it’s a woman giving up.  After losing her father, a source of control and stagnation in her life, Ophelia is free, but without any anchor or support.  This is Ophelia’s ultimate tragedy: there is no possibility of freedom in her world that would not require freedom from her world.

While there’s “method” in Hamlet’s madness, no one understands what Ophelia has to say, even as she repeats “mark me” over and over, much like the Ghost.1  Once again, Ophelia is heard, but not listened to.  Interestingly, however, it’s pretty easy for the audience to understand her.  It isn’t a stretch to say her song about losing an old man refers to Polonius, or that her ballad about a young man who betrays his lover alludes to Hamlet.  Though her world cannot hear her, the audience can.  This only emphasizes the deafness of her world specifically towards her, since Ophelia clearly has a great deal to say.

A lot has been written about the flowers Ophelia gives to away in her madness, and the coded meanings that each of these flowers have (just give it a quick Google), so I’ll just say what the action itself signifies.  Once again, it’s a subversion.  To get a little fancy, it’s a way of destabilizing a masculine script through a language of traditionally feminine objects.  Just like with her songs and observations, Ophelia uses a coded language to reveal what she really thinks. 

Though her world cannot hear her, the audience can.

Still, I don’t think this should be read as a victory.  To do so undermines the tragedy of Ophelia’s story, particularly given that it leads to her death. 

Unlike Hamlet, Ophelia gets no farewell speech.  She dies alone, after falling into a river and not moving to save herself.  Fittingly, Gertrude reports her death, and describes her “as one incapable of her own distress / Or like a creature native and endued / Unto that element” as she helplessly floats (4.7.203-205)2.  Just as in her life, Ophelia is incapable of advocating for or acting in her own self-interest.  She becomes what her world wanted her to be: passive.  And it kills her.  Unlike most tragedies, which come to fruition thanks to characters’ ill-fated choices, Ophelia’s tragedy occurs because she had no choices at all.

Gertrude, and Female Agency in a Patriarchy

Speaking of choices, lets talk about Gertrude, whose decision to marry her ex-brother-in-law is about the only thing anyone ever talks about in regards to her.  I’m a little salty about Gertrude-erasure, to say the least.  She’s a fascinating, multi-faceted, dynamic character who is eternally overshadowed by all the action and drama of Hamlet. 

Like Ophelia, Gertrude says very little, and male characters often ignore or overlook her.  But what’s really unique about Gertrude is that, unlike the young, non-royal Ophelia, she possesses a significant amount of agency.  The text makes it extremely clear that Gertrude chose to marry Claudius, something that later fills her with guilt.3  I suppose it’s here that I should touch on Hamlet’s infamous feelings towards women.

Hamlet’s a pretty unabashed misogynist, and his stances stem from his mother’s remarriage.  I’ll say right off the bat that I don’t really agree with the popular Oedipal reading of this.  To me, Hamlet seems way more bothered by the fact that Gertrude chose at all, and he believes, chose wrong. 

This is about agency, and the still prevalent and absurd belief that more rights for a marginalized group means a decrease in safety for the group in power.

It’s here that I find a feminist reading particularly enlightening.  When you get down to it, Hamlet is afraid of women’s sexual agency.  This helps explain his “get thee to a nunnery” speech to Ophelia (where better to police a woman’s sexuality?) as well as his beratement of his mother in Act III.  Hamlet, and Hamlet, are very concerned with power and control, and in my opinion looking at gendered politics, which were rapidly shifting in the Elizabethan era, is more helpful—and more interesting—than overanalyzing Hamlet’s Id.  This is about agency, and the still prevalent and absurd belief that an increase in the rights of a marginalized group means a decrease in safety for the group in power.

But let’s also take a closer look at this agency afforded to Gertrude: the agency to do…what?  Remain a widow for the rest of her days, or remarry, and reassert her power as queen?  There’s not much of a choice.  In both situations, a patriarchal order controls Gertrude—one option just gives her considerably more sway.  What we have here is a good old-fashioned tragedy: the stars contain just as much fault as her. 

Analyzing Gertrude’s Death

This reading gives Gertrude her own sub-tragedy, just like Ophelia, that results in a similar “un-liberating liberation.”  Gertrude’s death, in this case, symbolizes her acting against her previous choice to marry Claudius, and openly choosing the life of her son, and her own agency instead.  Whether Gertrude was aware that the wine was poisoned is ambiguous, but either way she decides to support her son rather than obey her husband3 (for the record, I think, as a keen observer, she totally knew what she was doing).  If we read Gertrude’s story as a tragedy of choice, compounded by unequal gender dynamics, we get a very compelling portrait of a woman subtly wielding the power that she has, thereby giving her a complex and tragic subplot. 

Why Feminist Readings Matter

At this point, I hope I’ve presented an inexhaustive reading of Hamlet that sheds some light on the gender dynamics present in the play.  These are complicated things, and while it would be almost impossible to argue that gender doesn’t impact the story, you might have a totally different—and valid—idea of how it does that.

Analyzing elements like these in isolation enriches our understanding of the essential tragedy of Hamlet, and for that matter, any tragedy.  Tragedies are all about a lack of control coupled with one’s own choices; they’re all about power and powerlessness.  With this in mind, Hamlet is not the only tragic hero present.  I hope you continue to examine this and other works with marginalized perspectives in mind, and consider all that a story has to offer if we read it from a different point of view.

Works Cited

  1. Fischer, Sandra K. “Hearing Ophelia: Gender and Tragic Discourse in ‘Hamlet.’” Renaissance and Reformation, vol. 14, no. 1, Winter 1990, pp. 1–10.
  2. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, Updated Edition, Simon & Shuster Paperbacks, 2012.
  3. Montgomery, Abigail L. “Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE Stage Center: Re-Viewing Gertrude as Full Participant and Active Interpreter in Hamlet.” South Atlantic Review, vol. 74, no. 3, Summer 2009, pp. 99–117.