Hamlet – Comparison of Gertrude and OpheliaGertrude and Ophelia occupy the leading roles for women in the Shakespearean drama Hamlet. As women, they share many things in common: attitudes of others, superficial or simple minds and perspectives, etc. This essay will delve deeper into what they have in common. The protagonist's negative attitude towards the two women is an obvious starting point. John Dover Wilson explains in What Happens in Hamlet how the prince disgusts the two women: The difficulty is not that, after having loved Ophelia, Hamlet ceases to love her. This is explained, as most critics have recognized, by the behavior of his mother who made him completely disenchanted with Love and poisoned his entire imagination. The exclamation “Fragility, your name is woman!” in the first monologue, we will sense later, he kisses Ophelia as well as Gertrude, while in the bedroom scene he almost accuses his mother of destroying his capacity for affection, when he accuses her of such an act which blurs the grace and blush of modesty, treats virtue as hypocrite, removes the rose From the pine brow of innocent love And places a light bulb there. Furthermore, it is clear that in the tirades in the convent scene he thinks almost as much about his mother as he does about Ophelia. (101) Other critics agree that both women are the recipients of Hamlet's ill will. In the Introduction to Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Hamlet, David Bevington enlightens the reader on the similarities between Gertrude and Ophelia as the hero sees them: Yet, for Hamlet, Ophelia is no better than any other Gertrude: all both are tender-hearted but submissive to the will. of unwelcome men, and are therefore forced to find themselves in an unusual situation...... middle of paper ...... "A Hamlet approach." Interpretations of Hamlet in the twentieth century. Ed. David Bevington. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Rpt. from An Approach to Hamlet. Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press, 1961. Pennington, Michael. “Ophelia: madness, her only refuge.” Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from “Hamlet”: A User's Guide. New York: Limelight Editions, 1996. Pitt, Angela. “Women in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.” Readings on Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. From Shakespeare's Women. Np: np, 1981.Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.htmlWilson, John Dover. What happens in Hamlet. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.