The Women in Hamlets Life
The Women in Hamlets LifeThe Women in Hamlets Life
“I have loved to the point of madness” (F.Sagan). Emotions are a powerful force which can shape a persons entire being and even drive them to madness. In Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, Hamlet is driven to act on his feelings. Through their impact on his emotions, Gertrude and Ophelia, the two main women in his life influence his every thought, word and action. Hamlet feels great anger towards his mother because she married his uncle Claudius. Hamlet can’t deal with his love for Ophelia, so he uses his antic disposition to push her away. Hamlet finally fulfills his obsession to kill Claudius, but only after losing the two women he cares for most.
Hamlet sees in his mother a manifestation of the premise that an unthinking woman, guided by her emotions, might through her actions inflict great stress upon men. At the same time, such a woman might unknowingly make it very difficult for such men to deal with that stress. The enormity of the stress that Gertrude puts upon Hamlet makes Hamlet develop a substantial resentment towards her. Since to Hamlet, Gertrude embodies the weaknesses of women in general, Hamlet’s resentment towards Gertrude is also projected against women in general. Ordinarily, Hamlet would not greatly resent women, but since in this case they have cornered him into an extremely stressful situation, he becomes exasperated. In his state of stress, the petty resentments he might have previously harboured towards woman for their “mercurial” emotional nature turns into a full-fledged resentment or hatred. Hamlet wants to achieve two goals with respect to Gertrude. One is to express his anger against her, which he harbours for essentially the same reasons that he had it for Ophelia. Two is to somehow induce her to stop loving Claudius. This latter development would eliminate the possibility that Hamlet might feel estrangement from motherly love in attempting to kill or from succeeding in killing Claudius. After all, in killing Claudius, Hamlet would not be killing the man his beloved mother loves. Gertrude would also not condemn Hamlet for killing or attempting to kill Claudius if she did not love Claudius. Thus, Hamlet would have the psychological freedom he would need to kill Claudius and thus relieve him of his obsession
His overall resentment towards women explains why Hamlet berates Ophelia to the point of driving her insane and towards her untimely death. Ophelia serves as a punching bag, representing women in general, which Hamlet attacks as an outlet for his general resentment of women. He also attacks her as an outlet in general for the tremendous stress his obsession causes within him. She is a convenient target because, being a woman who loves him, she does not fight back against Hamlet (in addition, Hamlet’s insanity also prevents her from doing so). In addition, the straining of his love bond towards Ophelia, although a form of estrangement, helps to pre-empt the even greater psychological pain that he would endure if she were to turn against him from knowledge of his obsession. After all, if the love between them were weakened, the impact of that kind of love rejection followed by her support of Claudius would be lessened. So Hamlet chooses to push her away, rather than risk being rejected by the woman he loves.
Ultimately Hamlet decides to kill Claudius. He does so for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, his mother, in drinking Claudius’ drink and thus poisoning herself, becomes conscious of Claudius’ treachery. She communicates her knowledge of this to Hamlet ” No, no, the drink, the drink,–O my dear Hamlet,–The drink, the drink! I am poison’d” (5.2.310) and thus her implied withdrawal of all support of Claudius. This eliminates the threat of motherly estrangement, virtually paving the way for Hamlet to kill Claudius. Claudius’ treachery is itself immoral, thus justifying Hamlet to kill him on principle. Also, the convenience and suddenness by which Hamlet came upon his opportunity to kill Claudius (Claudius prepared the poison, weapons, setting, etc.) allowed Hamlet to kill Claudius on impulse, thus sparing him of potential indecisiveness that protracted consideration might cause him. Finally, since Hamlet was mortally wounded, he had nothing to lose.
Although in the end Hamlet was able to fulfill is obsession to avenge his fathers death, he did so at a costly price. He let his anger consume when he was upset with his mother for marrying Claudius. He hid his feelings for Ophelia and pushed her away when he needed her most. When he finally kills Claudius Hamlet did what he had set out to do, but only after losing Gertrude and Ophelia. By denying his true emotions and feigning the antic disposition, Hamlet paid the ultimate sacrifice when he lost the two women whom he loved and cared most for in his life.