In the beginning of the play, Ophelia’s feelings for Hamlet are known when she tells her father, Polonius, about him. Ophelia states that “My lord, he hath importun’d me with love/In honourable fashion” (1.3.110-111). By saying this to Polonius she means that Hamlet is an honourable man, as he pleaded his love for her. Ophelia later forsakes her feeling for Hamlet when her father advices her to do so. She explicitly agrees not to see Hamlet upon her fathers’ behest: “I shall obey my lord” (1.3.136).
Dominate or Dominated: The Women of Hamlet The word that best describes the women in Shakespeare’s play, “Hamlet,” is dominated. Ophelia not only allows others to dictate her relationship with Hamlet, but she also allows them to use her as a pawn to plot against him. Gertrude shows her dependence upon males by her quick marriage to her dead husband’s brother, and she allows others to use her deceitfully in order to get to Hamlet, as well. Through these examples, it is evident that although they each have strong opinions, Gertrude and Ophelia play subservient roles to the men in their lives and require the need for men to show them what to think, as well as how to feel. In “Hamlet,” Ophelia’s introduction to the audience provides the foundation for her role throughout the rest of the play.
Shakespeare uses language, structure and dramatic devices to convey and create the effect of strong emotions through his ambitious characters, which is similarly portrayed in laboratory with the narrator’s strong and bitter emotions towards her husband’s infidelity. These characters can also be compared to the narrator of Porphyria’s lover whose intense emotions of love become too overwhelming for him to handle. Both Shakespeare and Browning show Elizabethan society as patriarchal, where men were considered to be the leaders and women subservient. Women were regarded as the weaker sex not just in terms of physical strength, but also emotionally. Women were also depicted as kind and caring as well as being the perfect mother and housewife, on the other hand men were portrayed as brave, strong and loyal.
There is a caesura used with the word ‘fine’, to bring an appreciation on the man by the persona for his commitment towards his wife and children. The beginning of the second stanza is linked with the last line of the first stanza. She has never asked him to abandon his wife and children for her sake, instead, she would satisfy herself with the simple gesture of affection, kiss. She is convinced on the fact that he would not indulge into having affair, just like the previous times. However, she persuades him through the words ‘couldn’t you…out of this?’ to forget about his family for an hour and commit his time entirely for her as long as he is with her.
Laertes tries to caution his sister to “ … Keep within the rear of your affection…” He tells her if she gives into her desire, she will only get hurt in the end. Polonius’ advice is different from Laertes, as where Laertes is looking out for his sister because he loves, when Polonius is only looking out for himself. Polonius calls Ophelia naïve, he says that Ophelia does not understand pediment that she have gotten her self-involved in. Polonius tells Ophelia that she should not believe the promises Hamlet has made for her, that he is deceiving her by swearing his love, his vows “ …they are brokers, Not of that dye which their investments shows...” they are not as wholesome as they appear. Polonius forbids Ophelia to see Hamlet
Similarly, pleading with Daisy, Tom invokes their intimate personal history to remind her that she has had feelings for him; by controlling the past, Tom eradicates Gatsby’s vision of the future. That Tom feels secure enough to send Daisy back to East Egg with Gatsby confirms Nick’s observation that Gatsby’s dream is dead. Gatsby’s decision to take the blame for Daisy demonstrates the deep love he still feels for her and illustrates the basic nobility that defines his character. Disregarding her almost capricious lack of concern for him, Gatsby sacrifices himself for Daisy. The image of a pitiable Gatsby keeping watch outside her house while she and Tom sit comfortably within is an indelible image that both allows the reader to look past Gatsby’s criminality and functions as a moving metaphor for the love Gatsby feels toward Daisy.
In the novels, The House of the Spirits and The Waiting Years, both authors, Isabel Allende and Fumiko Enchi, capitalize the struggles women face in society where they strive to define themselves in relation to their environment. Social convention and oppression establish familial traditions; male-dominated societies stand as obstacles to the female characters that attempt to react. Both authors use the same theme throughout the novels – the power of women in the household. Allende and Enchi both express this theme throughout the descriptions of each situation, except that Tomo and Clara react to things differently, thus showing the difference in strength of each character and the power of them in each household or society. It appears as if “normative standard of a good wife and wise mother” provides a social behavioural framework for the majority of the women in both novels, as it widely accepted that they should be “well suited to the duties of marriage and domestic life” .
The Roles of Men and Women in The Oresteia In The Oresteia, Aeschylus encourages the importance of the male role in society over that of the female. The entire trilogy can be seen as a subtle assertion of the superiority of men over women. Yet, the women create the real interest in the plays. Their characters are the incentive that makes everything occur. The characters of Clytaemnestra, Cassandra, and the goddess Athena can demonstrate this.
A patriarchy is defined as a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. Such systems currently exist in several forms and areas around the world; however, the most common place for these patriarchies is in our literature. Men are distorted by patriarchy both in being socially labeled as aggressive but, also shamed as they look into the mirror and see themselves. Shakespeare uses polarizing examples of feminism in Hamlet. He depicts women as completely sexual creatures and also devalues women in the eyes of men.
However in her soliloquy she does not once refer to herself. It is of Macbeth she thinks: she wishes to see her husband on the throne, and to place the sceptre within his grasp, demonstrating to us how loyal a wife she is. It is interesting to note, that her motivation is clearly her husband’s hesitant nature: “I fear thy nature; It is too full of the milk of human kindness” Believing that she is