Gender disparities and feminine nourishment in Hamlet

Gender Disparities in Hamlet

As Carol Thomas Neely observes, gender disparities in Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark "take shape in the contrasts between Hamlet and Ophelia" (330). Indeed, a world of difference can not only be seen between Hamlet's nature and Ophelia's but also between Hamlet's and Gertrude's. If Hamlet is concerned primarily with a kind of intellectual combat, Ophelia and Gertrude are involved in what appears to be more of an emotional conflict, brought about by a deeper penetration into the reality of things by intuition. Moreover, in a masculine dominated world (in all of Elsinore, there appear but two central characters who are women), Hamlet is guided and to a degree restored by "the terms of the masculine code," which ultimately prompt him to assume responsibility (Garner 302). Ophelia, however, is without any such reciprocating feminine code which might encourage her to scorn false obedience and maintain true love. The single source of feminine sympathy she has in the play, Gertrude, is just as manipulated and coaxed by the unsympathetic Polonius as Ophelia is and thus can do nothing to help nor to truly understand the conflict Ophelia undergoes. Ophelia is a woman who wishes to be both true to her fiance and her father and must choose one. The lack of feminine counsel leads Gabrielle Dane to state that, "Motherless and completely circumscribed by the men around her, Ophelia has been shaped…to reflect others' desires" (406). This paper will examine the gender disparities in Hamlet and show how men and women, who should be "nourished" in different ways in the drama, are essentially starved because they are denied the nourishment they need.

Identifying Differences

Hamlet's first description of his mother Gertrude is one of disgust: he is angry that she has so quickly forgotten his noble father and wed the ignoble Claudius. "Woman thy name is frailty!" he asserts in a moment of prophecy later fulfilled by the frail Ophelia's mental collapse under the strain of losing both a lover and a father. Hamlet, on the other hand, who loses both a father and a lover, does not collapse as entirely as Ophelia does. He does sink to a point at which he knows not what he is about: when he slays Polonious he has become so frenzied that he cannot even say who it is he is killed nor what he has done; Gertrude cries, "What have you done?" And he responds, "Nay, I know not." The shock of being confronted with his rash actions, after a seeming lifetime of meditation, contemplation, brooding, and consideration, compels Hamlet to the ultimate crisis point: either stay a course to madness and death (which waits him in England) or confront himself, assume responsibility (for both his actions and the execution of justice at Elsinore), and resolve the conflict. He ultimately chooses the latter, thanks both to serendipity (the pirate attack at sea is truly fortuitous) and the example of masculine resolve (as shown by Fortinbras and his march to war).

Moreover, Hamlet has a confidant in the form of Horatio, whose virtue and goodness is unparalleled in Elsinore. Neither Ophelia nor Gertrude has any such confidant. Laertes does not suffice as one for Ophelia because he merely parrots his father's speech, insisting on prejudicial platitudes and pat observations that take no care to reflect the reality of the situation. Ophelia does love Hamlet, but her love is discouraged by Laertes, who suspects all young men of being unfaithful, and chastised by Polonius who all but obliges Ophelia to deny Hamlet's suit and his affections. This advice is against Ophelia's nature: she believes Hamlet to be true and has been given no reason by him to suspect that his courtship is feigned. Yet, out of a sense of duty and obedience to her father, she rejects Hamlet -- much to his and her own misfortune. Made to love (Sheen 125), she is denied her natural outlet and instead unwittingly assists in the "overthrow" of Hamlet's mind by supporting his suspicion that all women are untrue.

The Woman's Nature

Gabrielle Dane asserts that it is because of the men of Elsinore's misperception of Ophelia's true nature as a woman that they cannot fully relate to her needs or wants: "Ophelia is angel to Laertes, she is asset to Polonius, a commodity to be disposed of, ideally at the greatest profit to himself" (406), and it might as well be added that she is life-support to Hamlet, albeit stripped away from him at the time he needs it most, when he is troubled by his vision of the ghost. In other words, the men of Elsinore see her as a "thing" to be enjoyed rather than as a young woman who is also in need of sympathy and salvation. Laertes wants her to be a pure angel, which is why he discourages an earthly relationship with another young man; Polonius wants her to be a pawn and an infant, which allows him to neglect her very adult yearnings for companionship and love, and so that he might also use her position to spy on Hamlet; and Hamlet wants her to be his salvation after his spirit and faith are rattled by the appearance of the ghost. Dane rightly observes that after Hamlet orders her to a nunnery so that she might avoid breeding sinners, "no line exists to suggest that either [Claudius or Polonius] moves to comfort or to help Ophelia from the site" (Dane 406).

It may be argued that Ophelia's sense of obedience is false, since she obeys Polonius despite the unfairness of his command. This argument, however, is not wholly sustainable, for it cannot be certain that Ophelia knew or realized the danger of what she was doing by rejecting Hamlet at such a perilous point in his own mental state. Once she realizes what has happened, she crumples to the floor, where she is ignored by her father and the King, who have used her only as a means of gauging Hamlet. Gertrude, who ought to be a source of feminine comfort to Ophelia is too wrapped up in her love for Claudius that she fails to see the ramifications of Ophelia's plight until it is too late. Indeed, after Ophelia's drowning, Gertrude gives a heart-rending account of Ophelia's death that shows exactly how aware the queen has become: Ophelia's death, in a sense, recalls Gertrude to herself and gives her an air of self-possession that she retains until her death at the end of the play.

Gertrude's self-absorption prior to Ophelia's drowning may be seen as the effect of her somewhat appetite-driven love, which Hamlet identifies early in the play: "Why, she would hang on him [King Hamlet] / as if increase of appetite had grown / by what it fed on" (1.2.147-149). Her love, Hamlet suggests, is immoderate, intemperate, unrestrained and sensual. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Gertrude has attached herself so completely to her new husband King Claudius. Unable to see or care for anything but the man to whom she is wed, she has no eyes for the only other female at Elsinore. Moreover, she is not jolted out of her vacuous attachment until the only other female is drowned. It is then that Gertrude speaks with eloquence and force: her narration of the circumstances of Ophelia's death to her brother Laertes is one of the most touching and sorrowful moments in the play.

In this moment, Gertrude speaks with such truthful simplicity that it seems she sees Ophelia as though for the first time -- a girl brought low by sadness and dejection under the weight of an overwhelming environment that did nothing but pull her down. The imagery is full of the notion of what might have been: a marriage to Hamlet, Ophelia made princess of Denmark, all lost because an "envious sliver broke" -- a reference perhaps to the source of trouble, Claudius' envy and murder of King Hamlet. Thus, Gertrude seems to intuit a complete chain reaction of events that has so far culminated in the death of the innocent Ophelia.

Moreover, Gertrude's speech is completely sympathetic for the first time and bears repeating for its symbolic representation of the tragic course of events: "There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds / Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, / When down her weedy trophies and herself / Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, / and mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, / Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, / as one incapable of her own distress / or like a creature native and endued / Unto that element" (4.7.196-205). Gertrude finally recognizes Ophelia as one who has been helpless, "incapable" of maintaining her sense of self amidst the unbridled masculine and manipulative forces at work at Elsinore. She likens Ophelia to a creature who is so "native" to her surroundings (the feminine-eradicated walls of Elsinore) that it seems natural for her to sink "into the element," or in other words the brook/death. This sudden tragedy occurs, no less, just as Ophelia is to happily crown the hanging boughs of the tree, which symbolically represents the happy instance that must have occurred just prior to the play's opening -- Hamlet's engagement to Ophelia. As on the bank of the brook, so too with Hamlet -- an "envious sliver broke"; the "rash" and "intruding" Polonius interjected himself and denied Ophelia what her nature so plainly made her for: to love. He teaches her, rather, to doubt and to suspect. Ophelia falls victim to the plague of Elsinore, which may be stated as the conflict between truth and falsehood.

The Man's Nature

Hamlet engages in this conflict in an altogether different manner, however. If Ophelia and Gertrude approach it from the direction of love, Hamlet approaches it from the direction of reason. Gertrude and Ophelia intuit; Hamlet rationalizes. Ophelia, for example, appreciates Hamlet's predicament immediately she sees him and without a word from him by way of explanation: "He raised a sigh so piteous and profound / as it did seem to shatter all his bulk / and end his being" (2.1.106-108). She cannot identify the problem at the heart of Hamlet's conflict, but she intuits enough to know there is one and that he should be pitied and helped for his pains. She continues, "He seemed to find his way without his eyes, / for out o' doors he went without their helps / and to the last bended their light on me" (2.1.110-112). Ophelia recognizes herself as "their helps," meaning she understands the role she ought to play in supporting Hamlet through love, assistance and appreciation -- a role she is denied by her incompetent father.

While Shirley Nelson Garner notes that Shakespeare's characters encourage a "fuller understanding of the traditional meanings of 'masculinity' than of 'femininity'" (302), a sense of the traditional meaning of femininity is at least implied negatively, that is, through omission. Ophelia goes mad because she is denied a traditional mode of feminine expression: love. Gertrude does not come to Ophelia's assistance, though she hoped for a union between her son and Ophelia, because she is too involved in her own relationship. One can glean, therefore, the two extremes of womanhood in Hamlet: to have no recourse to love lends one to madness; to love too extremely lends one to blindness. Since the play, however, lends itself more to the crisis of masculinity in Elsinore, it does not present a picture of traditional femininity along the same lines of one of Shakespeare's comedies. This is a tragedy -- and, moreover, it is the tragedy of Hamlet, not of Ophelia. Her death is a consequence of his tragic fall. Therefore, it is time to consider the way in which he and his gender face the conflict of the play.

The conflict is, essentially, one of truth. What is true? What is real? What is good? What is false? Hamlet cannot understand the conflict until he puts it in intelligent terms that give a sense of reason, proportion, logic and sense to the events. His faith is tested, his sense of nobility is outraged, his anger is provoked, and his confidence is knocked. Hamlet does suspect from the beginning that something is out of order at Elsinore, as do the other men watching the battlements (it is Marcellus who declares that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark") (1.4.100). But he cannot be certain until he himself has sufficiently considered all aspects of the problem, settled on a solution, and held himself responsible for effecting that solution. Hamlet's battle is to think, which he does. Ophelia's battle is to love, which she is simply not allowed to do. Thus, she dies. However, since thought/truth are so corrupted in Elsinore, Ophelia is not the only one to suffer the consequences of the unnatural environment: the entire royal party dies. Both love and reason are suffocated within the castle walls. Horatio alone is bidden to live so that at least someone might be able to make sense of the tragedy that has occurred.

The Man also Wants Respect

The gender disparity may also be seen in the way in which Hamlet rages and the way in which Gertrude describes it. Hamlet, rejected by Ophelia and denied an outlet to his natural yearnings, rails against all womankind and, in perfect Protestant form, decries the conception of new life as the "breeding of sinners," which he sees as a gross offense against God. Because Polonius refuses to allow his daughter to be Hamlet's help, Hamlet throws off all restraint and plunges headlong into an extreme mode of thought that seems Calvinistic in the fact that it views all mankind as totally depraved. In other words, there is no moderation in Hamlet's reason, just as there is no moderation in Gertrude's love.

It is Gertrude, however, who understands Hamlet's predicament, once she is awakened to the world around her following Ophelia's death. While he rages at the graveside of Ophelia, attempting to out-posture Laertes in displays of grief and thereby be respected, Gertrude reacts calmly and with keen feminine insight, "Anon, as patient as the female dove / When that her golden couplets are disclosed, / His silence will sit drooping" (5.1.304-306). The metaphor is significant: Gertrude likens Hamlet's sudden changes of mood to the sudden change of character that motherhood can impose on a woman: if motherhood brings composure to the woman in the traditional code of femininity, it may be assumed that adherence to a system of belief in which faith is supported by reason, as in the traditional code of masculinity finally assumed by Hamlet at the end of the play, brings about a sudden change of character, instilling composure where before there was none.

It is not until Hamlet asks Laertes' forgiveness and approaches Claudius like a man, with respect, confidence and clarity of mind, that he is able to assume responsibility and behave according to the noble code he believes in. Hamlet ultimately earns the respect he has also yearned to have: Fortinbras gives him a military funeral, observing that Hamlet would have made a fine soldier.

Conclusion

Hamlet illustrates gender disparities through the characters of Ophelia, Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius, Hamlet and others. Ophelia and Gertrude represent the nature of womanhood, which Fulton Sheen, speaking on behalf of the traditional worldview held during Shakespeare's time, asserts was made to love and to support manhood (125). Their inability (through their own faults as well as outside pressure) to love moderately has tragic consequences. Hamlet and the other men illustrate the man's need to reason and be respected: Hamlet cannot act until he has reconciled himself with the mission given him by the ghost; his feud with Laertes is a consequence of the young men's need to prove themselves worthy.

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