Most literature throughout history has portrayed women as inferior and reliant upon men. Until recently, men have been the leaders and the responsible figures in society. This patriarchal structure has forced women to become repressed and helpless, not only in the eyes of men and society. This social construction has been reproduced and reinforced in literature, as well. In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Othello and John Milton's Paradise Lost, Ophelia, Desdemona and Eve are subservient to the men in their lives, which leads them to tragedy and sin.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia is prey to Hamlet's manipulative desires. The women in Hamlet are "allowed by the play's men two and only two choices: virgin or whore" (Stanton 70). Because of society's view of women during the time of Hamlet, what a man declared about a woman was fact. When Hamlet tells Ophelia "get thee to a nunnery" (Shakespeare, Hamlet 3.1.122), slang...