Gender Roles Flashcards
“Thou knows’t ‘tis common, all lives must die.”
A1S2 Gertrude picks Claudius’ side early on by repeating “common”, and diminishes Hamlet’s grief, backed up by Claudius calling it “unmanly grief”.
“To thine own self be true.”
A1S3 Polonius’ ironically good advice to Laertes, contrasted by his restrictive rules to Ophelia
“I do not know my lord what I should think.”
A1S3 Ophelia claims she has no control over her choices, and does not seem to “think” for herself at all, Polonius completely controls her autonomy.
“More matter with less art.”
A2S2 Gertrude directly tells Polonius to just get to the point, she wants to understand Hamlet’s “lunacy” as soon as possible.
“Woe is me, to have seen what I have seen, see what I see.”
A3S1 Ophelia feels restricted by keeping all of her observations inside, and being powerless to the situation in Denmark.
“The lady doth protest too much methinks.”
A3S2 Gertrude defends her choices by indirectly comparing herself to the actor, there’s an underlying sense that Gertrude feels she made the right choice in quickly marrying Claudius, as she didn’t have many options as a widow.
“Sets a blister there, makes marriage vows as false as dicer’s oaths.”
A3S4 Hamlet scorns Gertrude for her remarriage and her lack of support for him, and claims she is not honouring her vows to Old Hamlet by not helping him.
“If words be made of breath, and breath of life, I have no life left to breathe.”
A3S4 Gertrude is assuring Hamlet that she will not tell Claudius that he killed Polonius, she would rather die than breathe a word of what he told her.
“She may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.”
A4S5, Horatio says this about Ophelia, to suggest that even in her madness, her words still have influence (or “method” as Polonius said about Hamlet in A2S2)
“‘Before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed’”
A4S5, Ophelia says this in one of her songs, but it’s clearly an allusion to her relationship to Hamlet, and heavily suggests they slept together before they were married, therefore Ophelia feels abandoned by him as she is neither married nor a virgin.
“Till that her garments heavy with drink pulled the poor wretch.”
A4S7 Gertrude describing Ophelia’s death in a romantic image, but this line in particular highlights how everything was too heavy for Ophelia to even struggle against both physically in her clothing (gender roles?) and mentally with her madness and powerlessness in her grief (she cannot act like Laertes)
