Rachel Kester Dr. Livingston ENGL 377 20 October 2018
Gertrude and Ophelia: A Tragic Tale of the Two Women in Hamlet
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is known for its intricate plot that tells of young prince Hamlet trying to achieve justice for his murdered father. Along the way, many other characters fall into their own traps which lead to many problems, such as death and insanity. Despite there being only two female characters in Hamlet, Gertrude and Ophelia, Shakespeare uses both of them to advance the themes of madness, avengement, deceit, the importance of family, and love in the play to lead to its eventual tragic ending.
Hamlet is a play built on the theme of madness. What does it mean to be insane? Are the characters truly mad or is one looking at them through the lens of other characters? While Gertrude does not necessarily go insane, it is evident that she is torn toward the end of the play between listening to her husband and saving her beloved son. Due to this, she ends up quickly drinking the poison in the cup that was intended for Hamlet during the fencing duel. Had she lived, perhaps this entire situation would have caused her even more mental anguish which would have led to her insanity.
Ophelia, on the other hand, is obviously insane toward the end of the play. After her father Polonius is killed, Ophelia does not know how to handle the situation and being independent which eventually gives her a mental breakdown. She is found reciting strange
things, such as her flower poems – “There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts” (4.5.3053-3054) and “There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays” (4.5.3056-3057). She eventually dies in a river beneath a willow tree, perhaps a metaphor for her innocence and purity. As Gertrude says during Ophelia’s funeral – “Sweets to the sweet! Farewell. [Scatters flowers.]” (5.1.3578-3579).
Another important theme in Hamlet is the theme of avengement. While Gertrude and Ophelia do not look for avengement, they are the unintended recipient of the avengement of others. For instance, when Hamlet kills Polonius due to his madness and desire to achieve justice for his father, this indirectly affects Ophelia – “I hope all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him i' th' cold ground” (4.5.2930-2931). Not only is her father dead, but it eventually causes her brother to die too, although she is dead before she knows Laertes has been killed. Gertrude is also a victim to avengement as her life is
drastically changed when Hamlet starts to plot to kill Claudius for his father’s murder. She must listen to Hamlet constantly chastise her as well as be submissive to her husband when he orders her to leave certain rooms or talk to certain people – “O, speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in mine ears” (3.4.2489-2490).
Gertrude and Ophelia also practice or see deceit in many areas of the play. For instance, the romantic relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia brings deceit into question. Ophelia and Hamlet carry on a love affair which we read about in the beginning of the play. However, they eventually break it off due to Polonius requesting Ophelia to ignore Hamlet and his advances – “No, my good lord; but, as you did command, I did repel his letters and denied” (2.1.1067-1068).
There is a question though of whether Ophelia ever truly loved him. When Hamlet talks about how they exchanged letters, Ophelia almost sounds indifferent about it rather than sad that the relationship can no longer continue. While she may not have intentionally meant be deceitful, it does come across to Hamlet as being so. In fact, in their few face-to-face exchanges in the play, Hamlet seems to contemplate this and the reader can almost feel his distress in the way as he talks to her which causes him to rant to Ophelia with the iconic nunnery scene – “If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape” (3.1.1827-1828). This may be foreshadowing to when Ophelia does die a rather innocent and pure death later in the play.
While it is not stated in the play, Gertrude is perhaps deceitful to Hamlet as she does not let her intentions of marrying or being with Claudius be known to him. However, while Gertrude may not fully show deceit in this play, she is a victim of Hamlet’s deceit when he pretends to be mad. She is not fully aware of his scheme in the beginning, but Hamlet eventually tells her his plot and that he is pretending to be mad which results in her trying to protect him in her own way.
Besides madness, one of the other most crucial themes in this play is family. The reader can tell that the characters find familial relationships vital. Gertrude and Ophelia show this in their own ways. While Gertrude marries Hamlet’s uncle, much to Hamlet’s displeasure, she still cares about her son and his well-being. One can almost feel how she is torn between her husband and her son as the play goes on. Ophelia cares deeply about her father and brother, a love so deep that it ends up killing her. Ophelia’s bond to her family though seems to be one of innocence, such as a young child to their parents and siblings. She has a close relationship but one that could be considered unhealthy as it seems to keep her back from doing the things she might like to do,
such as pursuing a relationship with Hamlet. However, in Elizabethan times this would be
considered normal as the women did not have many rights and freedoms, especially young single women, like Ophelia (“Audience and Social Attitudes”).
Gertrude and Ophelia also help to advance the play in its theme of love. Gertrude shows love in both a lustful and motherly way in Hamlet. After Hamlet’s father dies, Gertrude
immediately goes to marry Claudius, his brother. Hamlet is distraught because he believes Gertrude was rash in her decision and did not show his father respect. Gertrude comes across as desperate to have someone, despite her also coming off as very cool and independent.
Gertrude additionally shows motherly love in the story. She tries to help calm Hamlet with his rage although that is to no avail – “O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain”
(3.4.2559). However, at first, Gertrude is somewhat annoyed with Hamlet’s speeches slamming her and her recent marriage. She tries to put him in his place in the beginning – “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended” (3.4.2393). However, as the play goes on, her motherly love starts to come out when she sees that perhaps Hamlet has a point with what he is saying and eventually comes to his side. At the end of the play, she becomes distraught when she learns of the poison plot against him - “No, no! The drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink! I am poison'd. [Dies.]” (5.2.3965-3966). During this scene, she speaks to Claudius in somewhat of a stronger manner when she does go to drink the cup full of poison – “I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me” (5.1.3943). This scene may be a way for her to stand up for her son and protect him despite it meaning she must die.
Ophelia perhaps does not truly show romantic love in the play despite being courted by Hamlet. The only passionate love she seems to have is for her father whom she listens to closely and bases her decisions on his wishes. In other words, “Ophelia's love is muted and repressed by
forces that overwhelm her” (“Frailty, Thy Name is Woman: Ophelia and Hamlet”). Ophelia may want to love Hamlet romantically, but she is pressured into listening to others rather than
following her own wants and desires. As Elaine Showalter points out in “Ophelia, Gender and Madness”- “According to the critic Lee Edwards, ‘we can imagine Hamlet’s story without Ophelia, but Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet’” (“Ophelia, Gender and Madness”). This points to Ophelia not truly being her own person, but rather a mosaic of others and their choices for her. She also seems to be seen as only an object of beauty such as with “Claudius’ plan to send poor Ophelia as bait to catch Hamlet, mouths a wish to Ophelia that her beauty and goodness will persuade him back to sanity” (Suzman, 171).
Gertrude and Ophelia don’t make many appearances in Hamlet and have very short lines when they do appear, however, they are pivotal characters that have an important influence on the events that take place. Both Gertrude and Ophelia share many characteristics, such as a love for family, but also have major differences, such as the extent of their insanity and how they deal with pressure. Both of them though have proved to remain memorable as they are redesigned, especially Ophelia, in many popular young adult novels today to be strong and admired heroines. In fact, some try to reimagine what Hamlet would be like from Ophelia’s point-of-view but keep the main themes behind her character, such as “the confluence of pressures from parents and the public” (Detmer-Goebel, 118).
The reader or viewer of the play only sees a small sliver of who Gertrude and Ophelia are. Most of the time, one only reads about them through the eyes of others and could get a biased view of them. In fact, most might view them through the eyes of Hamlet – “In Shakespeare we find this lusty young Prince transformed into a melancholy, misogynistic bachelor, who over-reacts to his mother’s re-marriage, discards Ophelia with extreme brutality,
and regards women in general as breeders of sinner” (Bligh, 275). In “Frailty, Thy Name is Woman: Ophelia and Hamlet” this point is also discussed, “When Hamlet is at ease with his destiny, the women cease being monstrous and lustful and become worthy and true” (“Frailty, Thy Name is Woman: Ophelia and Hamlet”). While both of these women come from different walks of life and show very different personalities, they both live tragic lives in the sense that they let men take advantage of them and make life choices for them. Due to them not thinking for themselves and being overly submissive to the men in their life, they help to advance the tragic plot in Hamlet.
Works Cited “Audience and Social Attitudes.” English Literature,
https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/z2wp34j/revision/3.
Bligh, John. "The Women in the Hamlet Story." Dalhousie Review, vol. 53, 1973, pp. 275-285. ProQuest,
http://eres.regent.edu:2048/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.regent.edu/docview/54184621?accountid=13479.
Detmer-Goebel, Emily. "Engaging Ophelia in Early Twenty-First Century Young Adult Fiction." Shakespeare and Millennial Fiction. Edited by Andrew J. Hartley. Cambridge UP, 2018. ProQuest, http://eres.regent.edu:2048/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.regent.edu/docview/2040769644?accountid=13479.
“Frailty, Thy Name is Woman: Ophelia and Hamlet.” Women in Hamlet,
http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/bierman/elsinore/women/WomenOandH.html. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Open Source Shakespeare, 2018. Web.
Showalter, Elaine. “Ophelia, Gender and Madness.” Discovering Literature: Shakespeare & Renaissance, British Library, 15 March 2016,
https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/ophelia-gender-and-madness.
Suzman, Janet. “Gertrude and Ophelia.” Not Hamlet: Meditations on the Frail Position of Women in Drama, Oberon Books Ltd, 2012, 171.
Wallenfels, Immy. "Gertrude as a Character of Intersection in Hamlet." Journal of the Wooden O Symposium, vol. 6, 2006, pp. 90-99. ProQuest,
http://eres.regent.edu:2048/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.regent.edu/docview/814472556?accountid=13479.
Worsley, Amelia. "Ophelia's Loneliness." Elh, vol. 82, no. 2, 2015, pp. 521-551. ProQuest,
http://eres.regent.edu:2048/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.regent.edu/docview/1706216214?accountid=13479, doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.regent.edu:2048/10.1353/elh.2015.0022.
