Role of Women:
By looking closely at the women roles in Hamlet, you can get an idea of what the roles of women were in the Shakespearean times. The women are shown as weak. When Laertes sobs at Ophelia's grave, he declares that "When these are gone, /The woman will be out." By this he means that when he stops crying, he will stop being a woman. When Hamlet seeks revenge for his father's murder, he implies that Gertrude, his mother, is weak for remarrying by saying, "Frailty, thy name is woman." In the play, Gertrude's role is complex and also affects Hamlet's revenge, yet, though she is a Queen, she is only seen as a wife and a mother. This tells us that women were viewed as bound to their homes and were only seen as housewives and people who took care of the children.