Despite the fact that the world depicted in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is unequivocally a masculine world, the female characters Ophelia, the lover Hamlet, the prince of Denmark and the male protagonist, and Gertrude, Ophelia’s mother, are significant characters and contribute to the meaning of the play as a whole. These female protagonists retain significance because the males portrayed in the play do not fully understand them. Prototypical tragic heroes are often ascribed a brand of masculinity that is predicated on and constructed around a plethora of fears and anxieties regarding maternal corporeality. Indeed, both Ophelia and Gertrude Continue reading...