Gender Flashcards
Translation: stop acting so ridiculous about your dead dad.
“‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,
Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father.”
Hamlet’s grief of his father is not typical of a male
“‘Tis unmanly grief.”
Woemn are weak
“frailty, thy name is woman!”
Ophelia points out the double standard at work in Laertes’s advise.
Laertes is in no place to tell Ophelia what to do
Female power
“Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,”
What does Laertes tell Ophelia not to lose
Because he believes Ophelia’s virginity is literally valuable.
“chaste treasure”
Hamlet seems to think that not avenging his father’s murder makes him a coward and, therefore, like a woman—and not a nice, respectable woman…
“Why, what an ass am I! […] like a whore, unpack my heart with words”
Hamlet uses the artificiality of cosmetics (“paintings”) as an analogy for women’s deception. Hamlet says fake behavior is like makeup that covers a “face” —it makes a woman appear to be something she’s not.
“I have heard of your paintings too, well
enough. God has given you one face, and you
make yourselves another.”
Hamlet tells Ophelia that women make husbands into “monsters,”
But why does he flip out like this? Does Hamlet know that Claudius and Polonius are using Ophelia as bait to eavesdrop? If so, does he view Ophelia’s participation as a betrayal? Does Ophelia’s seeming betrayal remind Hamlet of his mother’s betrayal of his father?
“Or, if thou wilt needs marry,
marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what
monsters you make of them.”
When Laertes learns that Ophelia has drowned, he associates his watery tears with the “too much water” Ophelia has inside her.
“Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears.” (Laertes)
Grief isn’t a manly trait to have
Laertes says that as soon as his tears dry up he will forgot about any women.
Does that mean Hamlet has been acting like a woman this whole play?
“When these are gone,
The woman will be out”
