Shakespeare's plays had few women because women were not allowed to act in London in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Although restrictions exist on female character performance by prohibiting the performance of women on stage in a play, Shakespeare's plays are not without many strong-willed, intelligent and bold female characters. For example, Juliet Capulet seems to be a shy and innocent girl at the beginning of the play, but until the end she showed a courageous heart ready to give up her life for love. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare's most successful plays, although Shakespeare was famous for creating a strong and heroic female character. In Hamlet, the female characters Gertrude and Ophelia do not have the quality of treatment that the reader expects from Shakespeare's play. They serve as a theatrical balance for the male characters or a sounding board for their beautiful speeches and actions. Readers might comment on the lack of influence of the roles of female characters in Hamlet. Are Gertrude and Ophelia really a sexual objectification to the male characters in the play or is there something else to them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Gertrude can be seen as one of the minor and negative stereotypes of women shaped by the patriarchal values ​​and society of Shakespeare's time. In the play he plays many roles; She is Hamlet's mother, Queen of Denmark. Furthermore, her delicate role as the widow of the Ghost (King Hamlet), but married to the new King Claudius who is her late husband's brother, presented her in the play as an incestuous woman seeking only affection. She is the root of the ambitious village, hateful for the loss of her father and her betrayed mother. Her hasty act of marriage to her brother-in-law Claudius, less than two months after her husband's death, is condemned by Hamlet as akin to committing incest; “She got married. Oh, wicked speed, to affix with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!» (Act I, ii, 1404). This action by Gertrude seems unthinkable by today's standards. However, in the play, with the exception of Hamlet and the Ghost, the marriage between Claudius and Gertrude receives no criticism from anyone else in the play. Furthermore, the public seems to accept this wedding as a normal event. However, Hamlet still uses his series of incestuous marriages to criticize Gertrude and project his anger and disappointment onto her through the play. With this action, Hamlet not only shows women his sexist point of view, specifically for his mother's loyalty, but also insults and causes psychological conflict. However, this opinionated male point of view is enough to place Gertrude in a negative predisposition. Gertrude could also be considered a voiceless and silenced character because Shakespeare does not allow her to have many lines in the play. She doesn't speak much, this depends on the male characters, Hamlet, Claudius and the Ghost, to describe and shape her behavior. The audience doesn't hear his voice enough, so people can't understand what he's thinking. She was described by Hamlet and the Ghost as lustful women, although she herself never gave the audience any signs of being lustful. His silence is perhaps considered one of the many signs of weakness that Hamlet cannot overlook. This is why she despises her marriage and even Hamlet is her most ardent critic, when he expressed his most famous notion of female frailty, "frailty, thy name is woman!" (Act I, ii, 1404). Shakespeare states that his silence is meant to show hisweakness. Furthermore, in Hamlet's eyes, Gertrude is guilty and is accused of being the source of the problems in Denmark. He is guilty of not properly grieving King Hamlet as Hamlet himself grieved; “O God, a beast that wants the discourse of reason, wouldI wept longer – married to my uncle,” (Act I, ii, 1404). Gertrude is called “a beast” who lacks the faculty of reason or common sense by marrying her brother-in-law shortly after her husband's death. According to Hamlet's subjective view, Gertrude is expected to mourn King Hamlet for at least six months, wear mourning clothes for two years, and cannot participate in public for at least a year. Instead, he even asks Hamlet to “throw away thy knightly colour” (Act I, ii, 1402), to stop wearing black mourning clothes and “not forever with thy eyelids veiled” (Act I, ii , 1402), to stop by lowering your eyes. This seemingly insignificant conversation with Hamlet is the prelude to Gertrude being seen as a superficial and sinful woman who only wants to maintain her high position. In the end, Gertrude has regained fairness with the act of defending Hamlet when the veil covering the truth about the king's death is being cut, so she can wash away all her sins created by Hamlet's subjective view. She gives up her life for Hamlet, just as Shakespeare always portrays her as a quiet woman but with decisive actions. Gertrude seemed like a character with little influence in the play but it was the wrong idea. She is the reason that drives Hamlet to his frenzied revenge and is also Hamlet's protector until the end. Shakespeare clearly uses Gertrude as a figure for the most important core values ​​of a woman who never abandons her child. The patriarchal society of Western culture had highly negative implications on women. In this way, women's freedom of expression was not considered by men. Unfortunately, male respect for women was tied to the female body. Therefore it was acceptable that the female body was a “property” of man and that domination over women was a life goal for men in the Renaissance era. Hamlet's sexual conversation with Ophelia during the mousetrap scene would have been acceptable to a Renaissance audience. Hamlet: Lady, may I lie on your knee? Ophelia: No, my lord. Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters? Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.Hamlet: It is a beautiful thought to lie between the maids' legs. To modern audiences it appears that the “noble” prince shares a very inappropriate joke with Ophelia. In Elizabethan slang “nothing” was a term for female genitalia. Thus the “nothing” is what is found between the legs of the maids, it represents the male visual system of representation and desire, the sexual organs of women, in the words of the French psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray, “represent the horror of having nothing worth seeing." When Ophelia is mad, Gertrude says that "her speech is nothing", mere "formless usage". Ophelia's speech therefore represents the fear of having nothing to say in public. Deprived of thought, sexuality, language, Ophelia's story becomes the empty circle or mystery of female difference, "the cipher of female sexuality to be deciphered through feminist interpretation". Hamlet wields the power of words as a weapon and uses them against Ophelia. Overall, a direct impact on women in the show comes from the powerful use of words. Hamlet and other male characters such as Ophelia's father and brother scold Ophelia as if she were a child. They disrespect her as if she were less of a person than them. At one point Ophelia was told she should stay in a brothel instead.