The Role of Women in Hamlet
            
             For many years in the past, women were forced to play an insignificant role in society, politically, economically and socially. As a result, the literature of the past reflected this diminutive role of women but the works of William Shakespeare, in general, prove to be the exception. He had many strong women characters in his plays such as Lady MacBeth in the play MacBeth and Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. In his tragedy Hamlet, the women of the play, Gertrude and Ophelia, were portrayed on the surface as submissive women, controlled by the men in their lives. It was all true to the time. However, it was these female characters who acted as the driving force of the entire play through their strong, well drawn personalities. Throughout the play, the women truly had the power of control, even if they didn't realize it, because it was their influence that inevitably decided the fate of all of those around them.
            
             The whole premise for the play was revenge, a theme that wouldn't be present if it wasn't for the seemingly benign Gertrude. When she was remarried shortly after her husband's death to her husband's brother, Claudius, her son, Hamlet, was enraged. Soon after the news of his mother's marriage, Hamlet was visited by the ghost of his father, who told him he was killed by Claudius who poisoned him. As was customary at the time, Hamlet felt obliged to seek revenge on Claudius for the death of his father. This was the spark that started the fire of the tragedy of Hamlet and really it was a women who was the cause.
            
             It is also quite possible that the murder of Hamlet Sr. was also due to Gertrude. Since she married Claudius so quickly after her husband's death, it is conceivable that she and Claudius had already had an affair when her husband was alive, and maybe, Claudius wanted her so much that he felt compelled to kill her husband so he could take over. Whether...