Hamlet Gender Quotes

This is seriously mean. Here, Hamlet tells Ophelia that women make husbands into "monsters," which is allusion to the idea that cuckolds (men whose wives cheated on them) grew horns. In other words, he assumes that all women are unfaithful and all wives cheat, which is why he orders Ophelia to a "nunnery" (a convent for unmarried women but also a slang term for "brothel"). But why does he flip out like this? Does Hamlet know that Claudius and Polonius are using Ophelia as bait to eavesdrop? If so, does he view Ophelia's participation as a betrayal? Does Ophelia's seeming betrayal remind Hamlet of his mother's betrayal of his father?

Here, Hamlet uses the artificiality of cosmetics ("paintings") as an analogy for women's deception. Hamlet says fake behavior (playing dumb, walking, talking, and dancing in an affected way) is like makeup that covers a "face" —it makes a woman appear to be something she's not. In other words, Hamlet agrees with decades of teen magazine advice: just be yourself, girls! (Only, something tells us that Hamlet wouldn't actually dig that.)

We'll let literary critic Carol Thomas Neely handle this one: when Ophelia goes mad, her disturbed language sounds a lot like patriarchal oppression (the oppression of women by men) (source). Take this son: it's about the loss of a maiden's virginity (she's "tumbled") and a broken promise of marriage. Just like girls in almost any historical era, she's stuck: if she doesn't have sex with the guy, he'll dump her for being a prude; if she does, he'll dump her for being—well, not a prude.