 The theme of gender is an incredibly important and prevalent theme within Hamlet. Remember that this play was written in an era where women's lives were completely controlled by the men in their lives. In other words, if you're a woman and you were unmarried, you was perceived as the property of your father and of course once you became married you become the property of your husband, okay? And women's sexuality was tightly controlled by the men around them, okay? And of course this is shown through both the characters of Ophelia, okay? So it's her father who controls how she interacts with Hamlet and of course also Layertes, okay? Whilst there's a complete difference in Layertes' character, Layertes is allowed to go off to Paris and his father, you know, kind of jokingly talks to him about making sure he's not sleeping around and all those things, okay? Which is a complete contrast to how restricted Ophelia's life was. Of course also we can see that women's sexuality was highly controlled through how Hamlet is really disgusted and angry at his mother Gertrude for marrying Claudius even if her husband had died, okay? So women's sexuality was highly controlled. I remember that this was a very patriarchal society, patriarchal means controlled and dominated by men and women really did not have much say not only over who they, you know, married, who they slept with but of course not much of a say over much else, okay? So of course we can see that, you know, the character of Hamlet is incredibly sexist, okay? Especially towards his mother but equally towards Ophelia the way he's so dismissive towards her but more broadly the work in society as a whole and of course this is even shown in the character of Claudius, women worse being having any female traits were seen as very feminine and it was seen as very negative, okay? So gender is tightly controlled and women within the play are very much controlled by the men around them and of course we can see that whilst this drives Ophelia to madness Gertrude ultimately rebels against Claudius when he asks her and instructs her not to drink from the poisoned cup but she goes against him, okay? So always remember in terms of the theme of gender we can see just how tightly controlled women were but also anything that was associated with women and femininity were seen as a sign of weakness and Hamlet especially was angry at his mother in terms of how she was able to move on and he really wanted to control her sexuality. So if you're writing about the theme of gender I would suggest to bear in mind these quotations that I've prepared so let's go over them and look at the one level analysis you can do for them. So the first quotation is of course to do with Hamlet himself, okay? So he is mourning at the beginning of the play not only is he sad that his dad has passed away but he is especially disgusted at his mother for moving on, okay? So his mother is a widow, he expects her to just stay as a widow and he hates even the notion that she is sleeping with his uncle Claudius. Here he states and here he's seeing, you know, his mom as being very weak, very frail, okay? And even the idea of him feeling sad, this is, he sees this as a womanly trait and he's even angry that he feels so sad, he states, frailty, that I name his woman. Now of course here what this is establishing is anything to do with women and femininity is seen as weak and Hamlet not only is he really angry at his mother for moving on, okay? So he sees her especially, you know, being sexually active with her new husband that happens to be his uncle as disgusting but also on the other hand he sees any form of weakness as being attached to being a woman. Now the one level analysis you want to focus on here is when he states frailty is something feminine, this is a metaphor, okay? And again this idea of weakness being associated with women being very gendered is illustrated also when Claudius at the beginning is almost disgusted at the fact that Hamlet can't get over his father's death, he can't get over his grief and he sees this sadness that Hamlet experiences as really unmanly, okay? He sees it as effeminate and he says, his unmanly grief it shows a will most incorrect to heaven. In other words Claudius is saying, oh this grief that this guy is feeling over his dad who's just died, oh it's so unmanly, it's so feminine and it's almost it's even offensive to God's eyes, okay? He's not being a real man again, what this is showing is anything to do with women was associated with weakness. The one level analysis you want to focus on here is firstly the adjective unmanly, okay? So of course here anything to do with sadness, emotion is associated with femininity which is seen as weak but also the hyperbole most incorrect to heaven, okay? So this is seen as experiencing grief from Claudius' perspective is seen as something that's offensive, it's embarrassing for a man to experience any form of grief. The next quotation which ties into the theme of gender is when Hamlet now his father has given him specific instructions to kill Claudius and to leave his mom because his father as a ghost says, look I understand why your mom had to move on, you know she didn't have that many options and of course also if you consider it contextually women really did not have much in society beyond the husbands or the fathers that protected them or were married to them, okay? So Queen Hamlet or Queen Gertrude even, so Hamlet's mother being an unmarried widow that placed her in a very peculiar position, it also placed her in a very weak position as a woman, okay? So even if she was still married to the old King Hamlet her son could overthrow her and she could also be put in a position where she could be overthrown by other people and hence her marrying Claudius was also a power move in the sense that it would guarantee her queenship, okay? So it seems like the ghost of Hamlet's father seems to understand this and he tells Hamlet specifically, don't pick on your mom understand why she remarried but Hamlet is still obsessed with the notion of controlling his mom's choices, his mother's choices and again this ties into how women and their choices were controlled very tightly by the men around them, okay? Hamlet seems way more angry towards his mother than Claudius who's the person that killed his father and he states, oh most pernicious woman, okay? So this is when he finds out that his, you know, when he's talking about his mom and he finds out that his mom moved on to marry Claudius, okay? And here again what this is illustrating is the tight control that even sons had over the mother's sexuality. Here he's disgusted because he sees his mother as disgusting, pernicious for marrying Claudius and what you want to focus on here with this quotation is the fact that it's an exclamatory sentence, we can see here this ties into the theme of gender because it shows the control that men wanted to establish over all the women in their lives including their mothers, okay? So Hamlet seems to be more disgusted by the fact that his mom moved on rather than actually his uncle killed his father. The next quotation tying in to the theme of gender and how women's lives are tightly controlled is when Polonius is talking about Ophide, his daughter, as a possession, okay? And he states, I have a daughter, Ellipsis, while she is mine, Ellipsis, her duty and obedience and again here what this is illustrating is how tightly controlled the roles of daughters were in families and women had to be very passive, they had to listen to everything the parents told them and their roles in society were extremely restricted, okay? And this is illustrated through this quotation. Now the word love analysis you want to focus on is a possessive pronoun, mine, okay? So Ophide is an object to Polonius, again remember that during this time women did not have rights, they were actually classified as objects as properties of the husbands and later on or rather properties of their fathers and later on the husbands when they married. The other word love analysis you want to focus on is the word duty and obedience which belongs to semantic field of passivity, okay? Women were expected to be very passive just accepting what they were told and not really having minds of their own. The next quotation relating to the theme of gender is and actually this is two interesting quotes, okay? We can see that Ophelia and Gertrude almost had to robotically follow what they were told, okay? And both of them even the language really reflects and mimics each other, okay? Because Gertrude tells Claudius, I shall obey you, okay? And this is a declarative sentence, remember declarative sentence is a sentence that states a fact, feeling or mood. Here Gertrude is saying, yep, I'll listen to you, I'll follow you, you're my husband. And Ophelia speaks in a similar way, she states to her father, Polonius, I shall obey my lord, okay? So here we've got I shall obey and of course obey, the verb is used by Gertrude and of course also by Ophelia illustrating how women were expected to just be very passive, very submissive and of course also Ophelia speaks in a similar declarative sentence. This is contrasted by the end of the play when Gertrude disobeys her husband Claudius. So Claudius tells her don't drink from the cup, did not drink and of course Gertrude does not know it's poisoned. However when Claudius tells her don't drink from that queen, Gertrude refuses, she disobeys him and she states, I will my lord, I pray you pardon me. So here what she's saying is, I know you're told me not to drink but I'm not going to listen to you, I'm going to go against your wishes and I'm going to exercise my own free will. Now of course her exercising a free will leads to her death because she drinks from a poisoned cup and however what this is illustrating again is this idea that many times in society, especially during this time, women became fed up of how tightly controlled the roles and the lives were within either the marriages or their homes. So of course here we can see that Gertrude is rebelling because she's fed up of being told what to do with her husband and before that by Hamlet. Now the one love analysis you want to focus on is the repetition of the first person pronoun I. We can see here Gertrude is taking control and agency over her actions and of course she says pardon me okay so she's asking Claudius to forgive her and this is a verb. The next quotation which ties into Ophelia when she goes mad and she's highlighting how women, their value is only seen in terms of their sexuality and also if they lose their virginity they're no longer seen as valuable in the eyes of society okay and of course this ties into how tightly gender roles or how unfair gender roles were and how tightly women's lives are controlled and if you are not a virgin okay the man who slept with you he was still free to go on and marry and have a good life but you as a woman suddenly your life fell apart and she sings this when she lapses into a state of madness. She states he ellipsis let in the maid that out a maid never departed more. So this is her song which she's singing about Valentine and she's talking about a man who has tricked a virgin maid so a woman into sleeping with him and then of course he betrays her and then she leaves not being a virgin and again what this is illustrating is the very limited gender roles that women had okay they almost had to preserve the virginity and in society's eyes that would be seen as almost worthless if they were no longer virgins however the same did not apply to men okay so Ophelia in her madness is criticising this. Now the word love analysis you want to focus on is the repetition of the word maid okay it's repeated twice. Remember the connotation the meaning related to the word maid is this idea of an unmarried woman who is a virgin. The next quotation tiding to the theme of gender and of course how men controlled women's sexuality of course here we can see Hamlet being really horrible to Ophelia he tells her get thee to an honorary okay and this is an imperative sentence remember an imperative sentence is a sentence that issues a command he's saying oh if you think you're really good just go to an honorary okay all you women are sinful women you're all terrible the only way you can redeem yourselves is by going off to monastery and just never having any children okay and again here we can see Hamlet's incredibly sexist attitudes and his sexist words towards Ophelia okay now the word love analysis you want to focus on here is the essence of E in get thee and nunnery and finally we you can use this following quotation which shows how obsessed Hamlet is with controlling his mother's sexuality he speaks in actually frankly a very disrespectful way when he's talking about how disgusted he is by the sexual relationship she has with her new husband Claudius he states live in the rank sweat of an enceamed bed okay so this is when he goes to her bedroom and basically says oh i'm so disgusted not only are you married to Claudius but you're also sleeping with him and you know you're sleeping on these seamen stained sheets okay so he's being really disrespectful towards his mother and we can see here he's trying to control her sexuality again this is tying into the theme of gender how men felt very entitled to control the women in their lives this their own sexuality okay now the word love analysis you want to focus on is the adjectives rank okay talking about the sweat and enceamed okay and of course this is quite a gross adjective this is talking about how the bedsheets that Gertrude is sleeping on with Claudius are filled with semen also the other word love analysis you want to focus on is the assonance of E and live the sweat and and seemed as well as bed okay so that's really it when it comes to key quotations you should bear in mind if you are writing about the theme of gender for Hamlet thanks so much for listening