Sexuality In Hamlet
What is the significance of Hamlet’s Focus on Female Sexuality?
The play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, written in 1599 repeatedly brings up female sexuality. The emphasis on female sexuality has a lot to do with the time period and gender stereotypes in the time, some that are still vivid in the twenty first century. Some of the common disbeliefs are that all women are associated with corruption and temptation (Wilcox 45), this stereotype comes about from the story of Adam and Eve, which has been around since the creation of Christianity. Hamlet was written in the early modern English era, a time in which a female’s chastity was held as her “primary virtue” (Gibson 2).
During the year 1599 the ruler of England was Queen Elizabeth …show more content…
The ghost initially tells Hamlet that his brother Claudius has seduced Gertrude into marriage and not to get furious at her for what had happened, yet to “Leave her to heaven, /And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge/To prick and sting her.” (Hamlet 1.5.85-88) Hamlet highlights that Gertrude has committed a sin and will be punished by god, the sin being remarrying and having sexual relations with more than one man. Chastity was believed to be socially immoral and religiously unacceptable. The uses the word thorn, the word creates a relationship between the rose and the pleasure Gertrude will be obtaining in the moment but roses come with thorns and her sexual pleasures with her second husband being the rose, the punishment she will be getting from god will be the thorns prinking her in after life. It’s evident that Hamlet’s obsession with female sexuality is nothing out of the ordinary for his mother, considering Polonius and Laertes had openly talked about female sexuality with each other and Ophelia. Hamlet seems to constantly focus on his mother’s sex life rather than try to understand her reasoning for remarrying. Even though widows at the time were given more economic power compared to later on in the eighteen-hundreds, later on in the years the man’s property began to be given to his children rather than his wife. This was the way finances had generically been distributed, though the situation could have been a lot different for Gertrude, considering she was the queen and lived within a royal family. yet the idea of his mother possibly losing all she had never crossed his mind because Hamlet was too busy focusing on Gertrude’s sex life with
The play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, written in 1599 repeatedly brings up female sexuality. The emphasis on female sexuality has a lot to do with the time period and gender stereotypes in the time, some that are still vivid in the twenty first century. Some of the common disbeliefs are that all women are associated with corruption and temptation (Wilcox 45), this stereotype comes about from the story of Adam and Eve, which has been around since the creation of Christianity. Hamlet was written in the early modern English era, a time in which a female’s chastity was held as her “primary virtue” (Gibson 2).
During the year 1599 the ruler of England was Queen Elizabeth …show more content…
The ghost initially tells Hamlet that his brother Claudius has seduced Gertrude into marriage and not to get furious at her for what had happened, yet to “Leave her to heaven, /And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge/To prick and sting her.” (Hamlet 1.5.85-88) Hamlet highlights that Gertrude has committed a sin and will be punished by god, the sin being remarrying and having sexual relations with more than one man. Chastity was believed to be socially immoral and religiously unacceptable. The uses the word thorn, the word creates a relationship between the rose and the pleasure Gertrude will be obtaining in the moment but roses come with thorns and her sexual pleasures with her second husband being the rose, the punishment she will be getting from god will be the thorns prinking her in after life. It’s evident that Hamlet’s obsession with female sexuality is nothing out of the ordinary for his mother, considering Polonius and Laertes had openly talked about female sexuality with each other and Ophelia. Hamlet seems to constantly focus on his mother’s sex life rather than try to understand her reasoning for remarrying. Even though widows at the time were given more economic power compared to later on in the eighteen-hundreds, later on in the years the man’s property began to be given to his children rather than his wife. This was the way finances had generically been distributed, though the situation could have been a lot different for Gertrude, considering she was the queen and lived within a royal family. yet the idea of his mother possibly losing all she had never crossed his mind because Hamlet was too busy focusing on Gertrude’s sex life with