1984. Select a line or so of poetry, or a moment or scene in a novel, epic poem, or play that you find especially memorable. Write an essay in which you identify the line or the passage, explain its relationship to the work in which it is found, and analyze the reasons for its effectiveness.
Women during Shakespeare’s time had a very subservient role in society and were often viewed as “weak” by the men around them. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, this view is first introduced to the reader through Hamlet’s statement “Frailty, thy name is woman!” Significantly, Hamlet says “Frailty, thy name is woman”, a generic accusation which encompasses more than a specific character. In doing so, Hamlet brings forward the larger issue that is expanded upon and explored throughout the rest of the play: the relationship between strength, weakness and gender. While this is constantly explored through his mother Gertrude’s marriage, his girlfriend Ophelia’s questionable suicide, and the constant running-to-someone-else cycle of all characters in the play, Shakespeare makes no definitive argument about whether or not women are in fact “frail”. Instead, this is left ambiguous—if anything, Shakespeare argues that all men are as weak as the women they hypocritically term “frail”.
The woman actually referred to in Hamlet’s “Frailty!” soliloquy is his mother, Gertrude, and the ambiguity surrounding her strength of character is predominantly related to her hasty marriage to her brother-in-law pending her husband’s untimely death. This action not only provides Hamlet with his first real reason to hate women and his life, but essentially demonstrates the paradox of Gertrude’s character. In Shakespeare’s time, a woman without a husband was indeed “weak”, and had no influence, not even over her own life. Gertrude’s inability to remain stoic and single after her husband, the King, died, points toward her “frailty”, showing through the details of her re-marriage that she needs a man, and a powerful one at that. However, her marriage could also be viewed in another, more positive light. Given that women had no power as widows, Gertrude’s matrimonial choices could be viewed as the decisions of a strong, conscientious woman who wanted to be empowered, and who recognized the only way to be “strong” was to be married to an influential figure. In this way, Gertrude’s marriage was not the desperation actions of a frail woman who needed an arm to cling to, but that of an intelligent, powerful figure who wanted to retain some semblance of influence and would go to any lengths to do so. While this may not be particularly admirable to some readers, these are the actions of a strong-willed individual. However, Shakespeare does not offer the reader clear evidence of either reading, and Gertrude remains ambiguous as to whether she needed a husband or wanted a King.
The only other woman in Hamlet is Hamlet’s fiancé, Ophelia. On the surface this character seems to unquestionably support Hamlet’s assertion about women’s frailty, but gradually, ambiguity begins to emerge, especially surrounding her supposed suicide. When faced with her father’s death, Ophelia seems to commit suicide. Given this, the reader becomes inclined to view Ophelia as the “frail” woman Hamlet sees her as, because traditionally suicide is viewed as a cowardly, weak action, the escape of someone too frail to handle the reality of the world they live in. However, the reader cannot draw this conclusion and say Ophelia is frail, because Hamlet—the male protagonist, with whom the reader’s perspective is closely aligned—states in his famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy that suicide is admirable and courageous, and that the true cowardice and weakness comes from not committing suicide. Hamlet describes in detail how only the brave have the strength to end their suffering and face the unknown. Therefore, Ophelia’s suicide showing her weakness is extremely problematic, because Hamlet himself states that it shows her strength. As a result, Ophelia could go both ways, just like Gertrude.
However, there is another detail which throws Gertrude and Ophelia’s moral fiber into further ambiguity: their names. Gertrude comes from Germanic roots and means “strength” (rather contradicting Hamlet’s assertion), and Ophelia means “help”. While Gertrude’s name is simply either true or ironic, Ophelia’s puts a spotlight on another key issue in the play relating to gender strength: the help that all the characters in Hamlet seem to need. Initially, Ophelia seems to need help and be helpless. despite repeated abuse from Hamlet, Ophelia never gets angry or confronts him, she always runs to her father, brother, or the King. Early in her relationship with Hamlet, she passively accepts her father and brother’s views on him without argument, and then when he first tells her that he does not and has never loved her, and then implies that he should indeed rest his head “on [her] lap”, Ophelia simply runs back to those male family members. When she suspects Hamlet’s madness she does the same thing. This weak dependence on male figures, and inability to take action, is reflected in Gertrude too. When Gertrude witnesses Hamlet killing Polonius without even seeing who he’s stabbing first, and concludes he is mad, she runs back to her husband to have him solve the problem. Repeatedly, the two female characters exhibit weakness and dependence toward men, and need to be “helped.”
And yet for all that, Shakespeare maintains ambiguity, and another possible interpretation of Ophelia’s name, by having the male characters do essentially the same thing. When the men suspect Hamlet loves Ophelia (and this is the cause of his apparent insanity), they send Ophelia to spy on him and get information. When it is determined this is not the cause, the men don’t do much themselves, and instead send Gertrude to interrogate Hamlet some more. It is then that Gertrude flees from action after Polonius is killed. Through the cycle of men running to women for help, and then women running back to the men, the reader does not so much see Gertrude as not being “weak”, but as everyone being weak! The men cannot seem to make decisions and actions for themselves, any more than the women can. However, one could argue that then the King finally does take action, by sending Hamlet to England and arranging his murder, while Gertrude stands idly by, but he still needed Gertrude to help him gather evidence enough to take this action.
Ultimately, Shakespeare provides no definitive answer for the reader as to whether or not women are “weak”, instead seeming to imply that humans in general avoid doing things for themselves, and that the male gender tends to be hypocritical in their attitude toward women. Hamlet’s exclamation “Frailty, thy name is woman!” draws the reader’s attention due to both the extremity of the statement and the generic accusation it contains, but the reader can never draw a solid argument from the text. This ambiguity reinforces the conflict between the genders, and the lack of certainty, that pervades the play.
