"Sex and Violence"

The combination of lust and murder throughout Hamlet creates clashing outlooks for the female roles. Although there Shakespeare crams a lot of themes into his plays, which make the tales of Romeo and Juliette, Taming of the Shrew and many other Shakespearean stories relevant to contemporary life, the overall acknowledgement of women in Hamlet, does seem more negative than that of today.
Right off the bat Gertrude is perceived as an “incestuous” bride for marrying within a month of Hamlet’s father’s death (Act 1.2). The audience never hears a soliloquy or independent speech that givers Gertrude’s point of view. Even though she probably doesn’t deserve it, there is never time to find out whether or not there is true love between her and Claudius. It is all from Hamlet, the man’s point of view, and women are initially seen as deceiving and “whore-like.” We never really get to understand what Gertrude’s motives and involvement were with the death of her husband, it almost seems as if her reputation as a character is sought after more than the power hungry Claudius. It is evident from the initial introduction of Gertrude that women are not perceived as they are today (which is partly due to the fact that it was in the era, but isn’t Shakespeare supposed to be this genius who writes meaningful plays that have lasted for centuries as a form of “excellent writing??)
Then there is Ophelia. Between her brother telling her that Hamlet’s love will be short lived, her father conspiring against her lover with her letters, and Hamlet telling her to go to a “nunnery” (Act 3.1), it is no surprise she is driven mad. Ophelia’s mistreatment and her road to madness makes me give a second thought to Shakespeare’s motives. Shakespeare obviously understood the public disdain and mistreatment towards women or it wouldn’t have been included in his plays, however by having Ophelia go mad is he trying to represent how it’s surprising that all women don’t go mad because of all the discrimination during this era? I don’t know how if I want to give him credit for this because throughout the play Hamlet’s is constantly calling his mother and Ophelia whores as well as metaphorically integrating it into the rest of his language.
In a roundabout sort of way this comes back to the combination of lust and murder throughout the play. In between all the discrimination of women there is all this violence succumbed by the essence of love. Ophelia drowning herself and Gertrude remarrying so quickly cause turmoil that has the potential to turn dangerous. I wonder if Shakespeare had some kind of “hater-feelings” against the actuality of love and blamed women for it. But at the same time it seems that Shakespeare could have considered the fact that because of society’s indiscrimination it wasn’t entirely women’s fault that they invoked corruption, and in a sense Shakespeare intended to give most women credit for not going mad and drowning themselves. The many messages distributed throughout Hamlet can all be seen from different point of views, was Hamlet mad or was he faking it, are women viewed as “whores” or actually accredited in a “hidden” meaning (if they should be accredited why should it even be hidden??), no matter what the true meaning Shakespeare definitely had some talent up his sleeve.