Women in Hamlet through Shakespeare's vision

It is of no wonder that Shakespeare had something (not good) with woman especially because they way in which he portrayed them in his plays and stories. Women used to play antagonists roles in his plays or at best secondary to their male counterparts. People have even dared to talk about marginalization of women in Shakespeare's plays.

Hamlet is no exception to the rule. In this play, we can see that women are related to the vision that love and feminine traits are negative. Indeed, James Stone argued in “Androgynous ‘Union’ and the woman in Hamlet” that Hamlet spent the greater portion of the play trying to rid himself of feminine qualities like cowardice, sexuality and desire through suicide (Stone, 72-27)

Another example that we can find is the way in which Gertrude is portrayed. Shakespeare makes the roles of woman seemed as being that of a sexual object as portraying Gertrude in the most despicable way possible. This can be related to the fact that Hamlet "struggled to rid himself of his innate feminine qualities that he exhibited throughout the play". 

Personally, I believe the way in which Shakespeare used to portrayed women in their plays especially in Hamlet can tells us a little bit about his vision of life, love and everything. First of all, he could have been influenced by the things the audience in his time wanted to see because it was catered mostly to provide entertainment to men. In that way, the strong use of sexual references related to woman could have been the way in which he could entertaint old men that enjoyed thinking they were superior to women. And secondly, Shakespeare could have had a bad experience with a woman that triggered him to personify to each one of his female characters as evil objects.

Despite nowadays we can find offensive they way in which he describe and personified women, he truly glorified the negative perception of women as an inherent literary theme. And Shakespeare did it again. 

REFERENCES
- Stone, James. "Androgynous "Union" and the Woman in Hamlet." Shakespeare Studies  23.71 (1995): 71-99. Print
- http://www.ultius.com/ultius-blog/entry/essay-on-shakespeare-s-marginalization-of-women.html