Hamlet: Women Flashcards
(10 cards)
“Ophelia has no chance to develop an independent conscience, so stifled is she by the authority of the male world”
Juliette Dusinberre 1975
(Ophelia)
“Ophelia literally has no story without Hamlet”
Lee Edwards 1979
(Ophelia)
Gertrude is “nurturing and caring”
Rebecca Smith 1980
(Gertrude)
“Shakespeare is preoccupied with the uncontrollability of women’s sexuality”
Valerie Traub 1988
(Sexuality)
“Male power is restored through the vilification of women”
Valerie Traub 1988
(Women/villains)
“Ophelia’s dead, virginal body is fetishized by Hamlet and Laertes alike”
Valerie Traub 1988
(Funeral for O)
Ophelia was “ a kind of feminine ideal: totally passive, sexualized, and utterly defined by her romantic relationships”
Allan Ingram 2005
(O=ideal)
O and G are “the two archetypes of women.. the virgin and the whore”
Sean McEnvoy 2006
Archetypes
Act 1 quotes (women)
“It’s unmanly grief”
“I shall obey”
“Chaste treasure”
Gertrude “clings to her youth…a pretty creature…refusing to grow old”
Granville-Barker 1946
