This paper introduces and discusses the role of women in “Hamlet,” and “Othello” by William Shakespeare.
This paper analyzes the significance of the women and their roles and what they add to the meaning of the two plays. The paper contrasts the women characters in each play and examines which play more important roles. Characters analyzed are Hamlet’s fiance, Ophelia; Hamlet’s mother and Othello’s lover Desdemona.
Therefore, the women exist in Hamlet as a form of support to show why he hates them. They are all evil, troubled, or deceptive, and they back up Hamlet’s disgust with the fairer sex. Some critics even go so far as to intimate that Hamlet chooses death to remove himself from his mother’s sexuality (Maccary 51).
The women both serve another vital purpose in the play; they become the scapegoats that allow Hamlet to hide his own jealousy and rage at himself, for allowing his father to die, and not living up to his own expectations. His mother is living a seemingly happy life after his father dies, and this is too much for him to take.