Origin of Frailty, Thy Name is Woman

Hamlet, the hero of Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet, utters this famous phrase in Act 1, Scene II. In fact, he is recalling the beautiful memories of his mother and deceased father. He mourns the death of his father and changing nature of woman, referring to his mother, Gertrude, as she has married his uncle Claudius. He says, “Frailty, thy name is woman! / A little month, or ere those shoes were old / With which she follow’d my poor father’s body.” By “woman,” refers to Gertrude, who is morally weak because she has betrayed her husband by marrying his brother, Claudius, just one month after her husband’s death.

Meaning
Saddened by the death of his father and hasty marriage of his mother, Hamlet wants to die himself. To Hamlet’s mind, woman represents frailty, meaning women are breakable, weak, and delicate in nature. He alludes to inherent weaknesses in women’s character. His mother, Gertrude epitomizes frailty or weakness.

He also refers to his mother as a spiritually, morally, and physically weak woman. She is morally weak and frail because her incestuous inconstancy drives her to remarry immediately after her husband’s death. Spiritually, she is weak because she has committed a sin, and physically she is frail as women are less robust and weaker than men. In his eyes, there is no comparison between Claudius and his father, who is “Hyperion to a satyr.” Therefore, Hamlet feels Gertrude acted foolishly.

In an extended metaphor, the poet argues that because flowers provide perfume to console people during the winter, it is natural for the youth to have a child to console him during his old age. Without perfume from summer's flowers, people would not remember previous summers during the long, hard winters; childless, the young man will grow old alone and have nothing to remind him of his younger days.

Winter, an image of old age, is regarded with horror: "Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, / Beauty o'er snowed and bareness everywhere." The "lusty leaves" imagery recalls the "lusty days" from Sonnet 2 and reemphasizes the barrenness of the youth's old age, in which he will look back longingly on his younger days but have nothing to remember them by. However, in the final couplet, the poet evokes a comforting tone, suggesting that immortality is attainable for the young man, just as it is for summer's flowers when they are transformed into perfume, if only the young man would father a child.

Toni Morrison

Magic realism portrays fantasy events in the tones of other realism. It brings fables, folktales and myths into contemporary social significance. The fantasy qualities imparted to the character, such as levitation, telepathy, and telepathy, help to include modern political realities that may be hallucinations.