Hamlet's Women: The Victims
The women closest to Hamlet, Gertrude, his mother and Ophelia, his lover, are victims. The tragedy of Hamlet portrays many deaths and sorrows, but it is the women who suffer most, as they are treated like instruments to be used by the male characters to achieve their most pressing desires.
As one reads the tragedy of Hamlet, it is obvious that the female characters play inferior yet important roles in it. Shakespeare wrote Hamlet during the 16th century, wherein women occupied a status lower than the ruling males. In this period, women hardly had any of the rights that men enjoyed. Women were thought to be instruments of the devil, because they were the authors of original sin who seduced men to sin and hence lured them away from God. Society's beliefs went as far as to consider women as the only imperfect creatures that God created. …
