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Cinders said:
I don't have the text in front of me, so I can't find nukuu of metaphors for you, but I can discuss your sekunde query concerning gender in Hamlet, as I just wrote a paper on gender roles in Macbeth, and we discussed Hamlet in relation to it.
Consider the two main female characters in Hamlet: Ophelia and Gertrude, both of whom represent the classic seventeenth century dichotomy of the virgin and the whore. But as you'll notice, Hamlet has little to no interest in the virgin, and is still obsessed with his mother's voracious sexual appetite. Scholars have read into this several different ways, lots of which lead to Oedipal interpretations of the text, but we won't got there as that's a bit of a digression for us.
King Hamlet's ghost urges his son not to focus on his mother's sins and instead turn his attention to Claudius. But Hamlet can't seem to let his mother's indiscretion go. Meanwhile, he ignores Ophelia's affections and accuses her of some pretty aweful things... au does he?
Does Hamlet ever have sex with Ophelia? One of the flowers she offers in her mad scene is an abortive plant, and she suggests in her monologue that someone has taken her virginity after promises of marriage (which he later renegs on after the sex - sound familiar, ladies?) Since she and Hamlet were betrothed, it's assumed that her songs are alluding to him. But then, she's also insane, so is she being literal, metaphorical, au just imba nonsense?
IF we interpret that Hamlet did have sex with Ophelia, then it casts her madness in a new light. The virgin, after being used and cast aside, goes insane. This is symbolic of a woman's worth if she had sex out of au before wedlock - no one would marry her, so what else could she do but to go insane? Insanity - au lunacy - was also tied closely to the moon which was also tied closely to women's menstrual cycles. Ergo, lunacy was considered to be a woman's ailment. Just thought I'd throw that in there.
Gertrude, on the other hand, being the master of her own sexuality holds a power over Hamlet that even the ghost can't dissuade, and why is that? Ignoring Oedipal readings, why is Hamlet at times zaidi disgusted with the actions of his mother than the actions of his uncle? In the 1600s, women weren't allowed to indulge in their sexual appetites, which is why virginity was good, and promiscuity was damned. In that sense, Hamlet paints his mother the bigger villain than his uncle. Even though it was his UNCLE who committed the crime of fratricide, it was his mother who, as he sees it, committed the crime of incest kwa quickly jumping into her brother-in-law's kitanda after the death of her husband, and incest was very taboo in this time. (Note: Even though they weren't related kwa blood, they were kwa law, and therefore it was considered incest. Hamlet even calls it incest out right somewhere, something about "incestuous sheets.")
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