Abstract
In the early modern period, suicide was usually seen as inimical to the death arts, which is among the traditions that Hamlet calls into question. However, despite Hamlet’s radical thinking on the subject of suicide, the act of suicide is left—possibly—to Gertrude and Ophelia. Their deaths open up moral questions about suicide that are linked to the passive role expected of them as women in the world of the play. Hamlet rejects Agrippina’s active role in Roman politics as a model for Gertrude when he rejects Nero as a model for his own actions. Questions about the choice between active and contemplative life and about the efficacy of human action lie at the heart of the play; these questions are gendered and best illustrated in the life not of Hamlet but of his mother. Her potential pregnancy embodies the unknowable, painfully inaccessible inwardness that Hamlet finds in himself, and her final, unaccountable act of will—drinking the poisoned cup—proves more transformative than anything Hamlet does.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health. “Mandatory ultrasound viewing does little to dissuade women from getting abortions.” University of California San Francisco, 26 July 2017. https://www.ansirh.org/research/research/mandatory-ultrasound-viewing-does-little-dissuade-women-getting-abortions.
Balsdon, John Percy Vyvian Dacre, and Antony J. S. Spawforth. “Iulia Agrippina.” In Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199545568.001.0001/acref-9780199545568-e-3372#.
Battin, Margaret Pabst (ed.). The Ethics of Suicide Digital Archive. University of Utah. https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu.
Berry, E. G. “Hamlet and Suetonius.” Phoenix 2.3 (1948 Autumn): 73–81.
Belsey, Catherine. “Hamlet and Early Modern Stage Ghosts.” In Gothic Renaissance: A Reassessment. Edited by Elisabeth Bronfen and Beate Neumeier. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014. pp. 32–54.
Braden, Gordon. “Fame, Eternity, and Shakespeare’s Romans.” In Shakespeare and Renaissance Ethics. Edited by Patrick Gray and John D. Cox. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. pp. 37–55.
Brown, David Sterling. “(Early) Modern Literature: Crossing the Color-Line.” Radical Teacher 105 (2016 Summer): 69–77.
Brown, Ron. The Art of Suicide. London: Reaktion Books, 2004.
Bryant, Amy G., and Jonas J. Swartz. “Why Crisis Pregnancy Centers are Legal but Unethical.” AMA Journal of Ethics 20.3 (2018): 269–277. https://doi.org/10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.3.pfor1-1803.
Carter, Sarah. “Titus Andronicus and Myths of Maternal Revenge.” Cahiers Elisabéthains 77.1 (2010 Spring): 37–49.
Clare, Janet. “‘Buried in the Open Fields’: Early Modern Suicide and the Case of Ofelia.” Journal of Early Modern Studies 2 (2013): 241–252.
De Grazia, Margreta. “Hamlet” without Hamlet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Dowden, Edward (ed.). The Tragedy of Hamlet. Indianapolis, IN: Bowen Merrill, 1899.
Dutton, Richard. “Hamlet and Succession.” In Doubtful and Dangerous: The Question of Succession in Late Elizabethan England. Edited by Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014. pp. 173–191.
Fischer, Sandra K. “Hearing Ophelia: Gender and Tragic Discourse in Hamlet.” Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance Et Réforme, New Series/Nouvelle Série, 14.1 (1990): 1–10. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43444750.
Freccero, Carla. “Forget Hamlet.” Shakespeare Quarterly 62.2 (2011 Summer): 170–173.
Ginsburg, Judith. Representing Agrippina: Constructions of Female Power in the Early Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Guttmacher Institute. “Requirements for Ultrasound.” 1 June 2021. https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/requirements-ultrasound.
Hunt, Maurice. “Impregnating Ophelia.” Neophilogus 89 (2005): 641–663.
Jenkins, Harold (ed.). Hamlet. London: Methuen, 1982.
Gregg, Magin Lasov. “Reading Hamlet 3.1.121 as Remembrance of Richard II 5.1.23.” ANQ 22.8 (2010 July): 8–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/08957690903227639.
Lind, Vera. “The Suicidal Mind and Body: Examples from Northern Germany.” In From Sin to Insanity. Edited by Jeffrey Watt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. pp. 64–80.
MacDonald, Michael. Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
———. “Ophelia’s Maimèd Rites.” Shakespeare Quarterly 37.3 (1986 Autumn): 309–317.
———. “The Secularization of Suicide in England 1660–1800.” Past and Present 111 (1986): 50–97.
MacDonald, Michael, and Terence R. Murphy. Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Minois, Georges. History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Montgomery, Abigail. “Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE Stage Center: Re-Viewing Gertrude as Full Participant and Active Interpreter in Hamlet.” South Atlantic Review 74.3 (2009 Summer): 99–117.
Mountain View Baptist Church. “Ministry Outreach.” Mills, WY. http://www.mvbccasper.com/site/ministryteams.asp?sec_id=180014995.
Murray, Alexander. Suicide in the Middle Ages. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998–2000.
Newman, Lucile F. “Ophelia’s Herbal.” Economic Botany 33.2 (1979 April–June): 227–232.
Painter, Robert, and Brian Parker. “Ophelia’s Flowers Again.” Notes and Queries 41.1 (1994 March): 42ff.
Parker, Patricia. “Black Hamlet: Battening on the Moor.” Shakespeare Studies 31 (2003): 127–164.
Persoon, James. “Hamlet.” The Explicator 55.2 (1997 Winter): 70–71.
Pollin, Burton R. “Hamlet: A Successful Suicide.” Shakespeare Studies 1 (1965): 240–260.
Sanderson, Richard K. “Suicide as Message and Metadrama in English Renaissance Tragedy.” Comparative Drama 26.3 (1992 Fall): 199–217.
Sato, Makiko. “The Prohibition of Suicide for Affirmation of Human Beings by Augustine.” Scrinium 11.1 (2015): 135–142. https://doi.org/10.1163/18177565-00111p14.
Sawday, Jonathan. The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Seaver, Paul S. “Suicide and the Vicar General in London: A Mystery Solved?” In From Sin to Insanity Edited by Jeffrey Watt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. pp. 25–47.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edited by Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. London: Thompson Learning, 2006.
Slater, Michael. “The Ghost in the Machine: Emotion and Mind-Body Union in Hamlet and Descartes.” Criticism 58.4 (2016 Fall): 593–620.
Smith, Barbara. “Neither Accident nor Intent: Contextualizing the Suicide of Ophelia.” South Atlantic Review 73.2 (Spring 2008): 96–112.
True Care Women’s Resource Center, “3 Reasons to Have an Ultrasound before Abortion,” https://truecarecasper.org/3-important-reasons-to-have-an-ultrasound-before-an-abortion/.
Upadhyay, U.D., K. Kimport, E.K.O. Belusa, N.E. Johns, D.W. Laube, and S.C.M. Roberts, “Evaluating the Impact of a Mandatory Pre-abortion Ultrasound Viewing Law: A Mixed Methods Study.” PLoS One 12, no. 7 (2017 July 26): e0178871; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178871.
Watt, Jeffrey R. (ed.). From Sin to Insanity: Suicide in Early Modern Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.
Wiebe, Ellen R., and Lisa Adams, “Women's Perceptions about Seeing the Ultrasound Picture before an Abortion.” European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Care 14, no. 2 (2009 April): 97–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/13625180902745130.
Wilder, Lina Perkins. Shakespeare’s Memory Theatre: Recollection, Properties, and Character. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Wymer, Rowland. Suicide and Despair in the Jacobean Drama. London: Harvester, 1986.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wilder, L.P. (2022). The Soul of Agrippina: Gender, Suicide, and Reproductive Rights in Hamlet. In: Engel, W.E., Williams, G. (eds) The Shakespearean Death Arts. Palgrave Shakespeare Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88490-1_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88490-1_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-88489-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-88490-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)