In this paper, I examine Hamlet’s behavior toward the only two women in the play–Gertrude and Ophelia–through the lens of Judith Butler in her methodology on gender. I discuss Hamlet’s commitment to the fictitious gender binary and its subsequent gender roles, and make a claim that Hamlet attacks Gertrude and Ophelia’s traditionally “feminine” behavior as a way to compensate for the way he is called out for his own “unmanly” behavior in comparison to theirs. Hamlet sees the crumbling gender binary and seeks to reassert it so that he can continue to feel like a “man,” i.e., a more valuable and reputable person than women like Gertrude and Ophelia, according to his society. I analyze how this behavior makes Hamlet both a victim and an oppressor of a gendered social body, using Butler’s methodology to aid my close readings, as well as bits and pieces from Janet Adelman’s psychoanalysis of Hamlet in relation to his mother. In a world unfortunately crippled by gender conformity, I found it important to examine the cultural and psychological effects of gender working within the play, in hopes of better understanding gender’s implications in real societies, including ours today.
“Frailty, Thy Name is Woman!”: How Hamlet Confronts and Clings to the Gender Binary