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Despite Hamlet finds a love interest in Ophelia, it is extremely difficult for him to differentiate between Gertrude (his mother) and Ophelia. So he enters in a mental conflict that deals with both womens. He attempts to replace his uncle Claudius as «father» but also tries being in love with Ophelia. That is not an easy task to do. In the background of the play we can also see that the character of Hamlet fails to reach maturity in any of the relationships he is active in, and even some he is not. The women in Hamlet, Gertrude and Ophelia, are stereotypically seen as weak, passive characters who succumb to the desires and wishes of the men around them. The obedience of both women to their partners in other relationships can be seen as incestuous: Gertrude’s relationship with Claudius, Hamlet’s feelings towards his own mother, and Ophelia’s relationship with her father and brother all demonstrate these incestuous desires in which Hamlet becomes the passive character in the male dominated world. Despite the relationship of Gertrude and Claudius is not incestuous by blood, the relationship that Hamlet has with his mother can be seen as an obsession. Hamlet has a strange fascination with Gertrude’s sex life, and has an abnormal preoccupation with her in general.

You can check more viewpoints such as: Oedipus complex or Vengeance in the sub-categories of this section.

To make this review I have made a mix of different websites. I have organized and rewritten it for better understanding. You can see all this pages at my Bibliography.

You can also see & copy the links of words in blue in my Bibliography.

Academic year 2012/2013

© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López

© Aitor Bori Ibáñez
aiboi@alumni.uv.es