FEMINIST APPROACH IN HAMLET

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Name: Divya choudhary

Course : M.A English

Topic : Feminist Approach In Hamlet

Semester   : 01

Roll No      : 07

Paper No   : 1

Paper Name : The Renaissance Literature

Enrolment No: 15101007

Email ID    : choudharydivya400@gmail.com

BatchYear   : 2015-17

Submitted To: Department Of English                     

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

·      FEMINIST APPROACH IN 'HAMLET':

Feminism is a range of moments and ideologies that share a common goal: To define, establish and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment.

·      CHARACTER OF OPHELIA:

Ophelia is a tool of the men around her. In the famous nunnery scene Hamlet behaves rudely with Ophelia and says 'Frailty! Thy name is women'. First treated by his father and then Hamlet loves Ophelia but still be treats her badly. She is near pawn male intrigue and power struggle.

·       CHARACTER OF GETRUDE:

She has unwillingly and probably out of grief and weakness. Married a murderer already then she is ensnared in the coil that man do. After play within the play Hamlet confronts his mother with what she has done and her whole world is torn apart. She knows she has betrayed the memory of her  dead husband and married his killer. She is but another victim of men and their darkly driven natures and like Ophelia, Gertrude pays the ultimate price of her powerlessness; She is killed by the poison meant for men- her son prince Hamlet. Some cultural feminists point out that "both the male and female psyches are a construction of cultural forces as like class differences ratial and national differences. Patriarchal society is negative remark for the freedom of women. Females are treated as a tool or connected with female body part of his property. Sexual objectification is also shown here. Author is male in a male dominant culture; repented dialogue from his point of view. Gertrude is made out of Jackline rose as the symbolic "Skape goat of the play". Ophelia initially appears "shaped to conform to external demands, to reflect others desires". She is Laertes "angel", Polonius's "commodity" and Hamlet's spector of his psyches fears. This conflicting messages from these male damages Ophelia's psychological identity, their sudden absence provokes her mental distraction.  Opistimistically Ophelia's madness offers the capabilities of speech, the opportunity to discover individual identity and the power to verbally undermine authority. Sexual and psychological difference for example in Hamlet singing allows Ophelia to become both the literal and the figurative  dissonance that expresses marginalities. Her representation draws on gender stereotype of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage. In the first phase of feminist writing, writer imitating the norms and tradition cultivated by the more writers. The second phase expresses a strong protest against the patriarchal standard of society. The third phase is a period of self discovering and self assertion for women in the west. Feminism is not today view as something limited to a women's world but something that concern both women and men together. Constitution a human family. The cast factor plays dominant role in determination of the status of Indian Women. Feminism in India writing involves two questions the creative writing and the critical approach. It has become common place of literary interpretation to topic as ' Women characters of mulkraj Anand', The feminine principles of Raja Rao's novels, Female protagonist in Anita Desai. Earlier generation of Indian novelist in English couched extra- marital or illicit relationships, the more recent ones go to the extreme in their enthusiasm. According to Sharon Spencer " Feminine as applied to literature now a day's customarily indicates to author's preoccupation with intimate human relationships concern with emotional aspect of life and with a dynamics of the psychic realm of experience. Feminist also implied a position stressing that believes that women and inadequate. Feminist literature written by men or women is depicting a search for identity, quest for self and lost prestige and position of women. Feminist literature highlights the basic difference between a man and a woman in the changed context of contemporary life. The growth of women's self- awareness is a major motif of art in isolation from all the external point of reference. It  analysis the work of art as a self sufficient entity constitute by its parts in their internal relations. And sets out of judge it solely by criteria intrinsic to its own made of being. The analysis of an art from occurs in the central portion of Aristotle's  poetics. Aristotle isolated the species. 'Tragedy' and established its relation to the universal as imitation of a certain action and effected in purging pity and fear. The tragic work itself can be analyzed  formally as a self determining whole made up of parts, the tragic plot are  integrated by the internal relations of 'necessity or probability'. Aristotle's poetics, classical rhetoric and renaissance theories are earlier examples of systematic approaches to literary discourses. New criticism was a healthy reaction against the older philosophical, historical and biographical approach to the literature. It compelled the reader to be close text instead of read its author. Coleridge traced the formalistic method. Modern critics given a linguistic turn to criticism. But the formalist approach has its drawback also because it only stresses on text and neglect the author and milieu of text. Sociological criticism begins with the understanding that all literature is an expression of society, social forces, form and conditions. A Marxist critics examine the relation of a literary product to the actual economic and social reality of its time and place. The influential of Marxist critics, represent such a flexible view of the role of ideology. Raymond Williams also adopted Marxist concepts. Most historian and critic s believes that literature is related to the era in which author lived society which is addressed. Literature is a social institution. language ad literary devices are a social creation. Literature imitates life and life is a social reality. In Marxist view of the economic basis of social organisation, class ideologies and class conflict have influences the works of many critics. Study of social background of an author's work and the influence of that background on that work present in the Dickens world by Humpy house which gives the readers sociological criticism. We also find the social scene in the Dickens's novels, social convention in Jane Austen's, the relation between social issues and morality in Thackeray. Sociological criticism has a deeper inside into the works of the writers and given understanding of the time and condition of the writer. Ophelia - Polonius daughter, a beautiful young women with whom Hamlet has been in love. Ophelia is a sweet and innocent young girl, who obeys her father and her brother, Laertes. Dependent on men to tell her how to behave, she gives in Polonius's schemes to spy on Hamlet. Even in her lapse into madness and death, she remains maidenly, singing songs about flowers and finally drowning in the river amid the flower garlands she had gathered of all the pivotal characters in Hamlet, Ophelia is the most static and one- dimensional she has the potential to become a tragic heroin- to overcome the adversities inflicted upon her. But she instead crumbles into insanity, becoming merely tragic. This is because Ophelia herself is not as important as her representation of the dual nature of women in the play. Ophelia distinct purpose is to show at once Hamlet's wrapped view of women as callous sexual predators, and the innocence and virtue of women. The extent to which Hamlet feels betrayed by Gertrude is for more apperant with the addition of Ophelia to the play. Hamlet's feelings of rage against his mother can be directed toward Ophelia who is, in his estimation, hiding her base nature behind guise of impeccability through Ophelia we witness Hamlet's evolution, or de-evolution into a man convinced that all women are whores; that the women who say most pure are inside black with corruption and sexual desire. And of women are Harlots, then they must have their procurers. Gertrude has been made a whore by Claudius, and Ophelia has been made a whore by her father. In act ii Polonius makes arrangements to us the alluring Ophelia to discover by Hamlet is behaving so curiously. Hamlet is not in the room but it seems obvious from the following lines that he has overhead Polonius trying to use his daughter's charms to suit his underhanded purposes. In Hamlet's distraught mind. There is no grey area : Polonius prostitutes his daughter. And Hamlet tells Polonius so to his face. Labelling him a "Fishmonger" [ Despite the fact that Polonius cannot decipher the meaning behind Hamlet's words].

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