Term Paper on "Hamlet Frailty Thy Name Is Woman"

Term Paper 3 pages (1188 words) Sources: 10 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Hamlet

Frailty thy name is woman.": a contrast of the female characters in "Hamlet" as portrayed in two 20th century film productions

Oh rose of May." The address of Laertes to his mad sister Ophelia in Act 4, Scene 5 of Shakespeare's tragedy of "Hamlet" seems fitting in the decorous, controlled, and beautiful madness of the girl in Lawrence Oliver's 1948 dramatization of the play. However, Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film version attempts to make Ophelia's insanity realistic and in keeping with the Victorian setting. Winslet's straightjacket makes Laertes' comment seems desperate and ironic. Ophelia's raving is particularly gripping, given Kate Winslet's previously controlled and intelligent presentation of the young woman. This stark contrast of demeanor of both Ophelias during their pinnacle moments of emotional descent highlights the different ways that Oliver and Branagh view the roles of females in the play. Oliver takes a Freudian reading, viewing Hamlet as obsessed with Gertrude, and Ophelia is only a minor, pretty sideshow in relationship to the real love affair between the Prince of Denmark and his mother. Ophelia is merely a repository for Hamlet's obsessional regard for Gertrude. Instead of resorting to Freudian readings of the relationship, Branagh gives both of the main female characters equal psychological depth, rather than limiting his directorial interest to only how they relate to the central character. Both characters have their own unique journeys, one of an older woman who has fallen in love with a new man, the other of a young woman torn between allegiance to her father and brother and to the man she loves.

The fact that Oliver's version is only concerned with the central character is demonstrated almost immediately. "This is the story of a man who could not make up his mind," begins the film. (Oliver, 1948) This bit of inserted voice-over explicitly makes Hamlet's unique psychology, rather than the larger drama of the court the focus of the film. From the beginning of the Oliver film, Ophelia's perceived betrayal of Hamlet parallels Hamlet's sense of betrayal with his mother. In the Oliver film, even before the arrival of the ghost, "Ophelia and her father cross the gallery outsider her room, Polonius looks out, stands slightly, and then strides into the room; Ophelia...sees Hamlet...He gestures to her feebly...She is about to respond when her father calls her...Hamlet's hand falls...He never realizes that she is obeying her father against her will."(Dawson 178)

Shortly after this sequence, Hamlet bursts into his first soliloquy, and through this "textual transposition," placing the Ophelia scene immediately after the first soliloquy...a direct link is created between Hamlet's sense of sexual betrayal in Gertrude's "dexterous posting" between "incestuous sheets" with his uncle Claudius and Ophelia's refusal of him as a chaste or sexual lover. (Dawson 178; "Hamlet" I.2) The former seems likely, given that the actress who plays Ophelia seems so innocent, blond and docile to her father and brother's wishes, in contrast to the young, sensual brunette Gertrude. Oliver's Gertrude hardly seems old enough to have a mature son, although she also seems anything but innocent in the caressing way she behaves towards Oliver, even at the outset of the film.

Branagh's Gertrude is an older woman in love with Claudius, not with her son. As Derek Jacobi's Claudius first addresses the court, she gazes with confidence and affection upon him. Julie Christie is beautiful, but a mature woman, skilled in administration in the way that she moves confidently about the room, in public. She confirms one textual analysis of the queen: "She is more experienced than Claudius, with a… READ MORE

How to Reference "Hamlet Frailty Thy Name Is Woman" Term Paper in a Bibliography

Related Term Papers:

Woman on a Roof by Doris Lessing Essay

woman on a roof" by Doris Lessing: The fantasy life of men

"A woman on a roof" by Doris Lessing is a story about male anger and male perceptions of… read more

Essay 2 pages (762 words) Sources: 2 Style: MLA Topic: Women / Feminism

---

Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance Term Paper

Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance

The painting shows a woman at a table. She has a balance in her right hand, and on the table in front of her are… read more

Term Paper 1 pages (368 words) Sources: 1 Style: APA Topic: Women / Feminism

---

Women A-Level Coursework

Women

Prior to taking this course, I assumed, naturally, that women's studies were mainly about women. It turned out that women's studies is actually about all human beings. The goal… read more

A-Level Coursework 6 pages (1948 words) Sources: 6 Topic: Women / Feminism

---

Women and Feminist Studies A-Level Coursework

women studies at a time when the interdisciplinary willpower and its concepts were getting institutional identification. Women's studies provided me with an exclusive place to take up the positions of… read more

A-Level Coursework 6 pages (2564 words) Sources: 7 Topic: Women / Feminism

---

Women's Suffrage in the 19th Century Term Paper

Women's Suffrage In The 19th Century

Although the right of women in the U.S. To vote for their preferred political candidates was finally guaranteed through an amendment to the constitution… read more

Term Paper 8 pages (2561 words) Sources: 10 Topic: Women / Feminism

---

View 100+ more related papers  >>