this depiction of women's emotions as too frail and too powerful, taken together with the sense that Hamlet is preeminently the figure of consciousness, interiority, and thought, has led, in the reception of the play, to an interesting cultural effect: women, from Sarah Bernhardt on, have often aspired to be Hamlet, rather than Gertrude or Ophelia—not because Hamlet is a woman, but because “mankind” is Hamlet.
