Grief In Hamlet

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Over the course of time, women have constantly been controlled, and in some ways, contained by men. This is no different in William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. Within the play, the representation of women, especially through their grief, is a crucial component to the tragedy that unfolds. Initially, the women are contained in some way, meaning their stories are narrated or interpreted by someone else. However, towards the middle of the play, this changes and the women begin to control their own grief while still showing constraint. This portrayal of grief is analyzed through a feminist lens in Katharine Goodland’s article “The Gendered Poetics of Tragedy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.” Throughout the course of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet,…show more content…
In Hamlet, Hamlet relentlessly scrutinizes his mother, Gertrude for her apparent lack of emotion she showed after losing her husband and for her hasty remarriage to her deceased husband’s brother, Claudius. In Act 1, Scene 2 Hamlet gives his first soliloquy. In this soliloquy, Hamlet speaks of the haste with which his mother remarried. Hamlet says, “O God a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer!” (1.2.154-155). Through this exclamation, Hamlet is criticizing the grief expressed by Gertrude by comparing her to a beast. In her essay, Goodland argues that Hamlet used this comparison because he fears that Gertrude did not mourn…show more content…
She mourns for Hamlet, the loss of Hamlet’s love, and for her father. After witnessing Hamlet’s insanity, Ophelia mourns for Hamlet and the love they once shared by remembering what he was, what he was destined to be, and what she has lost. Hamlet and Ophelia engage in a conversation that is being watched by the King, Claudius, and Ophelia’s father, Polonius. At the end of her lament, Ophelia cries out “Oh, woe is me, T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!” (3.1. 164-175). Through her cries for Hamlet, Ophelia reveals the depth of love she had for Hamlet. During this scene, Shakespeare portrays a requirement of women to have a man. Without this man, they are left in a shocking state of grief. Through this quote, Ophelia also begins to mourn for herself through her cry of “woe is me.” While analyzing this scene, Goodland argues that Ophelia’s cries are superfluous because Polonius and Claudius are interpreting them (Goodland 197). While the way Ophelia responds to Hamlet’s sudden mental congestion is not inappropriate, it is interpreted as so by the men who are watching and reporting the events. In a following scene, Shakespeare introduces the audience to a new version of Ophelia. One that is interpreted as hysterical, which the men blame on the recent loss of her father. In Act 4 Scene 5 Ophelia mourns for her father through short song like laments. For the first time in the play, Ophelia mourns with
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