Shakespeare's Tragedies

Hamlet III - Difficult Women (1x5)

Air date: Jan 01, 2007

Hamlet is capable of extraordinary emotional violence against his mother and the young woman he claims to have loved. This lecture explores his confrontations with Gertrude and Ophelia and discusses why—although the "transgressions" of the women trigger so much of the action of the play—it is difficult to think of them as being tragic protagonists in their own right.