Introduction
For the past few centuries, the rise of various movements have marked a certain change in the ideas and philosophies of man regarding the true nature of his existence, the pronounced inequalities of not only wealth and power that has become the likely course of civilizations.
Core Objectives
Much of the inequality of power also exists in a very broad and much-debated area of man: the gender. Studies in psychology, sociology, anthropology have revealed interesting and conflicted debates on the ‘weaker sex’ and the patriarchal system of the world. A great example of that, presented in many other works of art, music and even fiction, is Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is my argument that Hamlet, one of the most significant works of fiction to be ever written in English Literature, has a similar position. Created as works of high complexity and psychological trepidation, Shakespeare’s much celebrated characters of Hamlet, Gertrude and Ophelia share an obvious position: a representation that exists only on Hamlet’s behalf. Gertrude’s personal outlook, her own reasons for marrying the brother of her husband after the death of her husband, is a conflict of interest for Hamlet. Thus his statements to the audience: “Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him/As if increase of appetite had grown/By what it fed on; and yet, within a month/Let me not think don’t: Frailty, thy name is woman! /A little month; or ere those shoes were old/with which she followed my poor father’s body,” (Shakespeare, p. 26) must be looked at with a point of view which can give equal weightage to Gertrude’s plight as well. We are unaware of many dimensions of Gertrude’s character as well as Ophelia’s. It is even further interesting to note that in the majority of the course of the play, Gertrude is either asked to follow, come, go or be heard by the King himself (Shakespeare, p. 109, 110, 120, 122, 133, 146, 156). At several places, the Gertrude is not a character of her own choice or will; she is rather the garden variety female who is simply the bone of content for protagonists.
What we know about Ophelia’s character is through her rants of madness and raves for Hamlet. In some way or the other, we see, Ophelia is connected to the central male character as a reflection on him, rather than her own reasons for being so. At one point she speaks to her father regarding Hamlet, “He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me,” to which Polonius replies, “You speak like a green girl, unsifted in such perilous circumstance?” Her reply is, “I do not know, my lord, what I should think” (Shakespeare, p. 35). It is strange to find an echo of De Beauvoir’s plight in the confusion of today’s heroine. “Not only do I not know what kind of person I am but also I do not know what kind of person I ought to be. Black and white merge into one another, the world is an amorphous mass and I no longer have any clear outlines” (De Beauvoir, p. 219). These are lines taken from twenty first century feminist Simone De Beauvoir’s work, “The Woman Destroyed” which speaks of women suffering the agonizing pains of growing older. Yet taken in context, Ophelia’s love is interpreted as the affection of a naiveté, whereas modern day De Beauvoir’s confusion is of the woman of the age struggling against her natural complexities. The difference is clear. Modern day feminist writers have much to offer to the female psychology than the 16th century Elizabethan era where women fit tight-knit stereotypes of either being fools in love or frail in passion.
It is my argument that women in fiction of a certain era have had a certain position, based on their given stereotypes of that respective century. It is a sad fact indeed, as following the theory of Roland Barthes (Barthes, p. 218) the reader of the given century reinforces his/her stereotypes through reading these pieces of fiction.
It is the medieval attitude towards women that cast Ophelia and Gertrude and many other female tragic, romantic and even central heroines of major works of fiction and theater, into the label of the ‘weaker sex’. As time has progressed and feminism has had its own gradient elevate, my argument may begin to find itself in a much more convenient position. Names as Dorothea Dix, Louise Labe, Sylvia Plath, Simone De Beauvoir, and Gloria Steinem have advocated and contested these stereotypes for time enough. While in the modern day it was Gloria Steinem, strongly advocating feminist principles (Daffron, p. 58) and even going as far as to present with a female version of psychoanalysis, in the sixteenth century, Louise Labé exhorted women to raise their gazes above their spindles and distaffs, to pursue and value knowledge and its rewards rather than jewelry and expensive clothes, and to pick up their pens to put their thoughts in writing (Renaissance in Print, image). How would these women have written Hamlet? Would Steinem have used Oedipus Rex as the crucial stage of personality development of human beings? Would Labe have explained Gertrude in a more improved way? Would the audience know why she married her husband’s brother within a few days after his demise? Or would Ophelia’s madness only be attributed to Hamlet’s lost love? In over-viewing literature of the 16th century, it is seen quite plainly that the role and status of women was considered as meager as it was suppressed. Had it been Labe’s version of Hamlet, Ophelia would have been speaking for herself, before dissolving into the oblivion of insanity. She would have had more dialogues to herself, explaining to her audiences how her love is conflicted between the world’s image of Hamlet and her own. She would have presented a Gertrude who may have smiled and married the new king in a matter of days with the old one deceased, yet the audiences would have also witnessed her secret torment, her sadness in missing her husband – or maybe even a profound reason behind her obvious inanity. She would not have simply maintained that gullible face as put forth by Shakespeare producing who is a picture of frailty, frivolity and foolhardiness. She would have been presented in the same saint/sinner conflict as Hamlet was presented in – the man who hallucinated, killed and forsook the love of his life only for the mad hatred he had for his uncle. Yet this man remained respected and desired for he was the ‘hero’ and the chief protagonist – and most of all – a man.
Conclusion
It can also be argued that during the time of Elizabethan plays, most actors were male and it was in fact the male actors who performed the female roles. Therefore it might have been a natural course of action to dedicate more lines to the male performers/characters. Nevertheless, even this fact on its own is example enough of women’s status in the 16th century. Literature of any age speaks for the people of its time. It grows out of the political and social mind-frames of the people and gives rise to what they will be remembered by in the future generations. The sixteenth century had possibly been the worst time for women in Europe. Where biblical and patristic texts were employed to justify a view of women as a source of temptation and conflict (Holmes, p. 47), medieval Europe was simply to pronounce these inequalities as a launching pad for a completely patriarchal society. The participation of women in the performing arts, spiritual growth and development, cultivation of political and psychological thought being extremely minimal their representation as intricate individuals was highly undermined. It was due to the changes of mindsets of people such as Louise Labe that brought about the difference in thought and ideas regarding women – thereby finally liberating them from ages of stereotyping and mindless oppression of the world around them.
References
Barthes, Roland. Roland Barthes. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977.
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Woman Destroyed. Great Britain: William Collins, 1969.
Daffron, Carolyn, Gloria Steinem, New York: Chelsea House, 1988.
Holmes, George. Oxford History of Medieval Europe. USA: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Labe, Louise. Dedicatory Epistle to a Friend. The Renaissance in Print. 2007. University of Virginia Library.
Ross, David. “Elizabethan Theatre.” English History. 2007. Britain Express.
Shakespeare, William. The Play of Hamlet. London: Collins Press, 1930.