Shakespeares Hamlet Essay: Comparison of Gertrude and Ophelia :: comparison compare contrast essays

Comparison of Gertrude and Ophelia within small town Shakespeare developed 126 female characters in his dramas. In his tragedy Hamlet there are Ophelia and Gertrude. This essay will explore the similarities or commonality of these two characters. One obvious feature which both(prenominal) Ophelia and Gertrude have in common is that they are both recipients of Hamlets ill-will. T.S. Elliot in his essay, Hamlet and His Problems explains how Gertrude is the object of the protagonists disgust Hamlet is up against the difficulty that his disgust is occasioned by his mother, but that his mother is not an adequate equivalent for it his disgust envelops and exceeds her. (25) L.C. Knight in An Approach to Hamlet, agreeing with T. S. Eliot, comments on the obsessive passion which the prince exercises in his chastisement of Gertrude I am of movement aware that what Hamlet says to his mother in the Closet scene whitethorn be regarded as part of a necessary and proper drive to break th e alliance between her and the smiling murderer but through it all runs the impure streak of the indulgence of an obsessive passion.. . . If with genuine, even with passionate, concern, you trust to help someone in great need, someone in do-or-die(a) ignorance of his true condition, do you, I wonder, say, This is what you are see how ugly you cipher? Well, perhaps you may but certainly not in such(prenominal) a way that you seem about to make an aggressive attack. (70) In similar fashion, Ophelia is verbally abused by the hero and this episode is enlarge on in detail later. In the Introduction to Twentieth cytosine Interpretations of Hamlet, David Bevington enlightens the reader regarding the similarities between Gertrude and Ophelia as the hero sees them Yet to Hamlet, Ophelia is no wear than another Gertrude both are tender of heart but bowing to the will of importunate men, and so are forced into uncharacteristic vices. twain would be other than what they are, and both receive Hamlets exhortations to bring repentance by abstaining from pleasure. Get thee to a nunnery Assume a moral excellence if you have it not. (9) As Bevington says, both Gertrude and Ophelia are tender of heart, motivated by love and a desire for quiet familial harmony among the members of their elegant society in Elsinore. At the first social function in the play, Gertrude is motivated out of love for her son to advise