November 16, 2022
Wow, the last post. And for my last post, we're going to be talking about something I didn't enjoy that much : Hamlet.
Hate on me all you want, but Hamlet rubbed me the wrong way and made me reconsider my view of Shakespeare. Now, I have always loved Shakespeare's sonnets. I memorized "Sonnet 18" in high school and recited it for my final project. I will even go as far as to say that Shakespeare is the best poet of all time for his sonnets alone. Even though I love his sonnets and have much respect for him in that regard, Shakespeare's dramas are not my favorites.
Hamlet was so sexist that I could hardly stomach to read it at times. I feel like the only role of the women in the play is to be subjected to misogyny, whether it be for plot purpose or humor. Ophelia's only role throughout seems to be for her to be the subject of sexist jokes. She also meets an untimely demise where she drowns. I thought this was morbid and quite unexpected, but when I remembered the other Shakespearean plays I read in high school, I realized that this wasn't the first time women died in a horrific way. The demise of Ophelia and other women in Shakespeare's plays led me to thinking about misogyny. I did a bit more research and found out that this wasn't the first play that Shakespeare had misogyny throughout as well.
Lady Macbeth from Macbeth is another example. She was portrayed as a strong woman at first. She was dominant in her marriage but she was also portrayed as unloving and not a good wife. Her role in the story is to be the one responsible for King Duncan's death and Macbeth's entrapment. She dies by suicide. Misogyny : check; horrific death : check.
Also in that play, the Weird Sisters are a symbol of misogyny. They were shown as beast-like rather than women. Also, their name is literally the Weird Sisters. While they don't die, they are considered demonic because of their powers. Misogyny : check; horrific death : check.
Othello is another example of this misogyny. Desdemona is a symbol of submissiveness throughout the play. She is subjected to misogyny by both her father and Othello. At the end of the play, she lets Othello strangle her to death because she thinks she deserves to die. Misogyny : check; horrific death : check.
An example from a play I have not read is Katherine Minola from Taming of the Shrew. She is described as a character that is described as physically beautiful but undesirable because she is smart and will not become the property of a man. Ultimately, she gets a "happy ending" that many of Shakespeare's other characters do not. This "happy ending" is her becoming submissive to man. Now, she didn't die physically, but an argument can be made that by submitting to her husband, she dies as a independent woman. So, again, misogyny : check; horrific death : check.
There are so many examples that I found online of women having tragic endings in Shakespeare's plays that this blog post would be a mile long if I included them all. Now, I can confidently say that Shakespeare was a misogynist, but was it all his fault? I know that sounds silly, but I think that since Shakespeare was potentially gay that his view on women was shaped around internalized homophobia. That could be a whole separate blog post so I'm not going to get too much into that besides offer that suggestion. I'm not trying to justify his actions, but rather offer an explanation. The world may never know what Shakespeare was and his motivations for being a misogynist, but I know what my views are after reading Hamlet.
Here is an article I found with feminist criticism and gender studies of Shakespeare's plays.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare/Feminist-criticism-and-gender-studies