What "reading" of HAMLET resonates with you?

1. A Feminist reading of
Shakespeare’s Hamlet

2. What is feminist literary theory?
It is a responder’s perspective (or
“reading”) of a text which is
focused on:
• Women's’ role and value in
society as portrayed through
texts
• Woman as a construct through
literature (which means the
role and value of females is
created and perpetuated by
literature / texts?

4. What to focus on when exploring a
feminist reading of Hamlet
• Evaluate women’s experience
• Analyse the representations of women in the play
• Challenge the view of woman as “Other”*
• Examine and challenge patriarchal roles
• Examine language as a tool of gender
construction and gender value / roles
• Discuss social versus biological difference
• Question / challenge the neutrality of mainstream
interpretation (a dominant reading of the play).

5. *The “Other”
• The opposite of “the same”
• Used to exclude a group
• To subordinate those who do not fit in
• Gives justification for the dominance and
exploitation of “inferior” groups

6. Feminist terminology
• Patriarchy – in a society the male is the centre of
authority
– This is what is meant by a patriarchal society
• Hegemony – leadership; predominance.
– A hegemony is a dominant group or a system that
creates the rules we live by
• Gender – term used when distinguishing male
and female in a variety of disciplines

7. Women’s oppressions under male
domination rarely, if ever, consists solely in
depriving women of political and legal
rights, but also extends into the structure of
our society and the content of our culture
and permeates our consciousness.

8. Do the femalecharacters in Hamlet
possess any power?
• Claudius: “…our sometimes sister, now our
Queen…” (Act 1. sc2) [insert language/textual
techniques and analysis]
– Power in title only
– “Chooses” not to speak or use power
• Gertrude: ‘I pray thee, stay with us. Go not to
Wittenberg.’
Hamlet: ‘I shall in all my best obey you madam.’”
(Act 1. sc 2.) [insert language/textual techniques and
analysis]
– “Mother power”

9. How dofemale characters act
toward each other?
• Gertrude: ‘Alas sweet lady, what imports this song?’
Ophelia: ‘Say you? Nay, pray you. mark.’ (Act 4. sc 5.)
[insert language/textual techniques and analysis]
– Minimal exchange of dialogue
– Silences when the king enters
• Gertrude: “Sweets to sweet, farewell! I hoped thou
shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife…” (Act 5. sc 1.)
[insert language/textual techniques and analysis]
– Continued exchange after death
– Bond with Ophelia
– Hoped for daughter

10. Are the female characters oversimplified?
• Claudius: “…our sometimes sister, now our Queen…” (Act
1. sc 2)
[insert language/textual techniques and analysis]
 Identity is defined by her relationship to men
– Queen status
– Hamlet’s mother
– Married her husbands brother
– No feelings or deep thoughts
• “I hope all will be well. We must be patient…” (Act 4. sc 5.
73)
[insert language/textual techniques and analysis]
– Less simplified character

11. Are the female characters believable?
• Ophelia loves Hamlet and is forced to betray him. She
then goes mad after her father’s death.
– Emotion and feeling? 
– Betrayal of a lover? 
– Insane with grief? 
• Hamlet: “O god, a beast…would have mourned longer!
Married with my uncle!” (Act 1. sc 2.) [insert language/textual
techniques and analysis]
• “Ho Help!” (3.4.27) [insert language/textual techniques and analysis]
– Gertrude’s believability
– Lack of emotional attachment
– Damsel in distress  weakness – needs a man to “save” her.

12. What roles to female characters assume inthe
play?
How are they valued in Elizabethansociety?
Has this changedin 400 years? How much?• Gertrude:
– Queen
– Mother
– Lack of voice and willingness
– Silences for the King
• Ophelia:
– Subservient to father
– “advised and guided” by brother
– Pawn and possession used by all the men in her life
• Both female characters are merely male
possessions and both female characters have
unequal expectations of virtue and “obedience”
enforced on them by the male characters.

13. A Game ofChess
Act 3 Scene 1
• Lines 1-88
– Ophelia speaks once
– Does not agree or disagree
Ophelia: “How does your honour this many a day” (3.1.90) [insert language/textual techniques
and analysis]
– Incorrect passage of time?
– Nervous or embarrassed?
Ophelia: “Could Beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with Honesty?”
Hamlet: “Ay, truly. For the power of Beauty will sooner transform Honesty from what it
is to a bawd than the force of Honesty can translate Beauty into his likeness. This was a
paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.” (3.1.107-114) [insert
language/textual techniques and analysis]
– Beauty and Honesty (chastity)
– Ophelia shifting subject
– Hamlet redirecting focus
– Male personification

14. AGameof ChessContinued
Act 3 Scene 1
Ophelia: “I was the more deceived” (3.1.119) [insert language/textual
techniques and analysis]
– By Hamlet’s love
– By Polonius
 reveals
that_______________________________________________________?
Ophelia: “And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, /That sucked the honey of
his musicked vows” (3.1.154) [insert language/textual techniques and
analysis]
• obeyed Polonius  ?
• Unhappy but complies with being pawn  ?
• Ophelia’s love is not valued by Hamlet or Polonius ?
Branagh Film?
 Checkered Floor – visual metaphor for the game being played as
the male characters “move” Ophelia” around the room.
 The mirrored gallery  symbolic of recurring motif of ________