As Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, the fiction was set in the Renaissance era and therefore the women's personalities reflected this period. The natural stereotype of this time saw women as weak, fickle and dependent on the men in their society and subject to the decisions that the latter made for them. This was an extremely common representation and very rarely proven wrong in the eyes of men of that time. Women's rights were non-existent during this time, so it was not unusual for the depiction of women to be so negative and offensive. Since women of this age didn't know anything else, they tried to fit the stereotype to please the "natural order." The role played by women in Hamlet was complicated. Their distinct purpose as characters in the tragedy was to illustrate Hamlet's distorted view of women and to give the audience a clear understanding of Hamlet's madness and distress. Hamlet's strong and unwavering judgment of women was caused by his mother. He had illusions about women because of Gertrude's actions. He is consumed by the absurdity of his mother's love for his uncle and is justified in feeling disgust towards his mother, her actions and her implications and, in doing so, caused Hamlet's unforgivable treatment of all women in their whole. Although Hamlet gives the illusion that Shakespeare is extremely disgusted with the female race, Hamlet's view does not truly reflect Shakespeare's attitude toward women. By choosing to marry so soon after her husband's death, Gertrude transgresses patriarchal boundaries of femininity. She refuses to remain in passive grief and obedient devotion to his memory. Gertrude's sin was her inaction. She was ready to accept Claudius and did not hesitate to reject him. In Hamlet's eyes, his father was all middle of the paper. Only in her madness does she live up to Hamlet's false perceptions as a defiant woman as she sings of lost virtue and sinful affairs. When Ophelia commits suicide, Shakespeare proves that he does not just view women as passive and accepting. In Ophelia's voluntary death, she refuses to live miserably in a life that refuses her. In death, she lashes out at the world, accusing it of being so unbearable that even death was preferable to life. In the character of Ophelia, Shakespeare places vulnerability on one side and a kind of nobility on the other, demonstrating that his opinion of women is not that of a single mind and temperament, but that each character has their own vices and virtues, their own ideas and beliefs. Shakespeare depicts women as both passive and active, shameful and noble, apathetic and loving; they are themselves.Works CitedShakespeare's Hamlet