Hamlet is often regarded as one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies because it is timeless in its preoccupation with the dilemmas and the uncertainties that are at the heart of life (Hibbard, p. 2). Indeed, it is the playwright's preoccupation with the internal conflicts in a man's soul th...

When Hamlet utters the words “Frailty, thy name is woman” in act one, scene two, he prepares the audience in a very specific way for the two female characters of the play, Ophelia and Gertrude. Before either sets foot on stage we expect them to be rather weak, fickle, as opposed to the mostly ...