Gender Roles

While reading an analysis by David Bevington, an editor of one of the editions of Hamlet, I was especially interested in Bevington’s beliefs that “Ophelia is more innocent than her father and brother, and truly more affectionate towards Hamlet.” The specific gender roles in Hamlet are very much apparent. Ophelia, a woman, is seemingly more “innocent” and “affectionate” that her masculine relatives. Still, I included “seemingly” because I am still not sure how to define the relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet. In the two movies we have watched, there have been two different interpretations—one in which Ophelia is frail and innocent and the other in which Ophelia has already submitted to her relationship to Hamlet. Therefore, while Bevington might suppose Ophelia as innocent, appearances are deceiving, as evidenced by Hamlet’s and Claudius’s own respective facades.

However, while I’m not completely sure about Ophelia’s innocence, I can still sympathize with Ophelia. She is under the control of three men and isn’t free to exert her own independence. In fact, Ophelia and even Gertrude both have very few lines in the play, showing their relative unimportance and lack of strength. Ophelia demonstrates her passivity by simply conceding to the commands of her father and her brother. Even today, when we acted out the scene between Ophelia and Hamlet, Hamlet grabs Ophelia’s arm with such a tight hold in a way that is perhaps Hamlet’s way of declaring his power over her.

I feel that it is also important to compare the two central female characters in the play, Ophelia and Gertrude. Both women are defined by their relationships to men. Gertrude, at first married to Hamlet’s father, is now married to Hamlet’s uncle. Whether she married the uncle by choice or was forced to, Gertrude doesn’t seem to have much role in the kingdom except as wife. In a similar way, while Hamlet seems to be a large part of Ophelia’s life, Ophelia is of limited concern to Hamlet. It is no wonder that Hamlet exclaims “frailty, thy name is woman” because the two women in his life are subservient to men and rarely follow their own will.

Besides Ophelia and Gertrude, I also want to comment on Hamlet’s own almost frail state. Hamlet, acting like a madman, seems to be committing the same rash decisions that he accused his mother of doing. I think that, as we read the novel, we are going to realize that Hamlet’s mental state stems from his belief that the world itself is an “unweeded garden/ That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature/ Possess it merely.” Hamlet has little faith in the world, and thus, seems to have awakened his own tragic flaw. As he seeks revenge for his father, I think that Hamlet is frail and weak in the sense that he succumbs to his feelings of revenge and hate. Hamlet may not realize it, but just as his mother supposedly “succumbs” to his uncle, Hamlet is falling prey to another evil—an evil that may eventually lead to his downfall.

"The School Children"

“The School Children” by Louise Glück was one of the poems that I found especially interesting because only close analysis reveals a deeper, more significant meaning. Just on the surface, the poem seems to be about a simple life moment—young children going to school. However, the poem is actually more about a struggle between the mothers and teachers. As the children “go forward with the little satchels,” the mothers “have labored.” The images of hard-working mothers suggest that the mothers’ work makes the children go forward. Even the structure of the poem indicates that the mothers dictate the children’s actions. The first stanza and last stanza are the only stanzas that mention the mothers. It is almost as if the mothers enclose the children as they try to protect them from the outside world. Such analysis then begs the question—what is the outside world?

The outside world could be the school, filled with judgmental and powerful teachers. Although the mothers struggle to send their children to the teachers, they continue to work to impress the teachers. Still, the apples gathered are “like words of another language.” There is a certain disconnection between the teachers and mothers as the teachers are “on the other shore.” It seems like the children are caught in the war between the teachers and the mothers. Amidst the overbearing teachers that wait “behind the great desks” and the mothers “scour the orchards,” there is no good for the children. In fact, the line “How orderly they are—the nails/ on which the children hang” makes it seem as if the children are themselves hanging. Perhaps then, Glück has a very negative attitude towards schooling. Although the mothers seek their children’s success, their labor is having the opposite effect. Finally, the last line of the poem reaffirms the fact that there is a subtle war between the teacher and mothers possibly for control over the children. The inclusion of the word “ammunition” suggests that gathering the apples is a way for the mothers to still maintain control over the children and their school lives. However, there is “little ammunition,” implying that the mothers lose the war in the end.

After reading “The School Children,” I started working upon my own poem. However, I realized that capturing a life moment is very difficult. Even more, I must capture that moment in an artistic and beautiful way. Now that I am working on my own poem, I appreciate the work of gifted poets so much more. The fact that Louise Glück could incorporate so much meaning into so few lines astounds me. Even the colors in the poem have their own meaning. The “gray” limbs of the tree could point to the gradual aging of the children as they go from their mothers’ hands to the teacher’s hands. Or the “gray” could be representative of the gray area that is present between the teacher and the mothers. Furthermore, although Glück might not have intentionally added all the meaning that I see, I think such analysis allows me to understand the poem in a much more personal way.