Feminist Readings and Criticisms of Hamlet

Question 1

Core focuses of feminist criticism

Answer 1

• Power relations, particularly between men and women
• Examines the notion of gender and the extent to which ideas of what constitute masculinity or femininity have been constructed

Question 2

Central ideas of feminist thinking

Answer 2

• Negative stereotyping of women
• Gender roles are constructed
• Texts reflecting the patriarchy

Question 3

Lisa Jardine

Answer 3

• Questioned why critics such as Freud and TS Eliot were so keen to place ‘the play’s burden of guilt’ on the figure of Gertrude, present Hamlet as a ‘blameless hero’
• Blamed the ‘political tendency’ in society’
• ‘Political tendency’ in society

Question 4

Sonia Massai on misogynistic play

Answer 4

• ‘One of the most fiercely misogynistic play’
• ‘Gertrude is the target of this hatred’

Question 5

Sonia Massai on Gertrude’s comparison

Answer 5

• Gertrude is an ‘ambiguous’ figure
• However, Gertrude ‘has a lot of compassion for Ophelia’
• Her remarriage to Claudius ‘was not so uncommon, particularly in the context of the royal families’

Question 6

Sonia Massai on Biblical ambiguity

Answer 6

• Pointed out ambiguity in the Bible about whether marrying one’s dead husband’s brother was ‘incestuous or not’ with one book forbidding it but another (Deuteronomy) urging it

Question 7

Sonia Massai on the silencing of women

Answer 7

• ‘The fundamental problem with Ophelia and Gertrude in the play is that they each speak 4% of the lines in play so they are mostly represented’
• Female characters are under-developed and not given sufficient scope to define themselves

Question 8

David Leverenz ‘The Woman in Hamlet’

Answer 8

• Ophelia: ‘everyone has used her’
• Ophelia’s descent into madness is made inevitable by the extent to which she is exploited

Question 9

Carol Rutter

Answer 9

• ‘Ophelia is bullied [and] betrayed by every person in the play’
• Ophelia’s journey mirrors that Hamlet

Question 10

Carol Camden

Answer 10

• ‘Hamlet’s pretended madness is contrasted with the reality of Ophelia’s madness’
• She is a marginal figure, whereas Hamlet’s feigned madness dominates the play
• Puts this down to gender roles

Question 11

Katherine Goodland

Answer 11

• Hamlet imposes stereotypical gender roles on Ophelia in the nunnery scene
• He portrays her as ‘a saint at the beginning of the scene to a painted whore by the end’

Question 12

Maurice Charney and Hanna Charney

Answer 12

• Ophelia: ‘her madness enables her to assert her being; she is no longer enforced to keep silent and play the dutiful daughter’