Both plays show fearless women who intervene with political matters and cause tension within the kingdom. Lady Macbeth questions her husband and pressures him into being more aggressive, while Antigone defies Creon by burying her dead brother, Polynieces. Both Lady Macbeth and Antigone defy the social and political expectations of their society by adopting the expected behaviors of the opposite gender. Lady Macbeth disregards the social and political norms by wanting to become more masculine and aggressive. While she prepares to exterminate the current king, she cries out “Unsex me here,/ and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty.” (Shakespeare.
In the play, the women take matters into their own hands by hosting a sex strike; they are determined to win the war by themselves. Lysistrata is seen to be the leader of this great adventure and a whole new look on anti-war gestures are seen. Aristophanes makes the play about making war, and not making love. The sex strike is strung out for six days, at the Acropolis. Overall, the women were upset that their men were never home, thus making an unbalance in their family, leading to an unbalance in society.
English 1A Medea Journal Entry Euripidies’ Medea is a tragic Greek play in which the main character Medea takes horrible revenge on her husband for leaving her to marry a princess. I really liked how modern a play Medea must have been for its time. Most of Greek literature and culture is centered on masculinity but in Medea we see a woman who although crazy stands up for herself in a male dominated world. As the play progresses her blind rage transforms Medea from a helpless victim, to crazed child killer. Medea is introduced as a miserable ranting wreck.
Much of the literature of ancient Greece, such as the works of Homer and Hesiod, portray women as evil, and beings that exist simply for the purpose of reproducing. An example of this is within Hesiod’s Works and Days, “I am going to give them Evil in exchange for fire, their very own Evil to love and embrace” (Works and Days, p.130, 75). The Evil of whom Zeus is speaking is, in fact, woman. Evil hardly sounds like the making of a hero, yet Euripides made Medea, a woman, the hero of this play. The poet dared to defy the social norm and create a new form of tragedy, one in which characters are used equally throughout regardless of their sex.
Agrippina the Younger was the third wife of Claudius and the mother of Nero. Ancient writers have perceived her as a manipulative woman, controlling her husband and doing anything to place her son Nero upon the Imperial throne. Agrippina has gone down as one of the most powerful and most ruthless women in history. However modern historians have reviewed the images of Agrippina, free from the sexual bias of the Ancient writers. The histrorian James Romm portrayed Agrippina as a woman who was simply trying to escape the restrictions imposed on her by society.
She is now just an object that he owns; which many Victorian women were to their husbands. Porphyria’s Lover starts with Porphyria appearing to have the upper hand over her lover due to the possessive title of the poem and how she takes control as soon as she enters the house “she shut the cold out and the storm” and then when she appears to assert dominance in their relationships “and made her smooth white shoulder bare”. It is clear that her lover feels as if his power is being threatened so he kills her “Three times her little throat around and strangled her”. The man’s power is restored and Porphyria is dead and powerless. Because he strangles her with her own hair the speaker infers that Porphyria brought this on herself by trying to take his power, this was her fault and not his.
(Aeschylus 116). Intelligence and cleverness, while celebrated in a man, are threatening characteristics in a woman. In the palace of Argos, Clytaemnestra has been having an open affair with Aegisthus. The chorus, who acts as the voice of the common man, and therefore the voice of morality, condemn her for this affair even though it is common practice for men in ancient Greece to have many extramarital affairs themselves. In this way Aeschylus overlooks the double standards placed upon the women of the time period, but he also, perhaps unwittingly, sets up Clytaemnestra as the antagonist of the plays.
“My friends at home now hate me…” Medea even earned more enemies when helping Jason. For examples, she killed Pelias and his daughters. “There I put king Pelias…” Through the play, Euripides shows that Medea is an obedient wife when she had borne for Jason two sons. She always tries
Sophocles: The Three Theban Plays Theban Plays of Sophocles paints a picture of very strong female characters. One of the brightest protagonists of the plays is Antigone, who challenged the law of state under penalty of death for the sake of divine law and her brother’s honor. Antigone’s act of defiance is a good deed. It was a deeply moral act that made her a heroine of civil disobedience. This act of disobedience eventually led to political and legal reform in Ancient Greece.
At last her strategem was discovered, and the suitors were enraged. She promised to marry the man who could bend her husband's great bow. None of the suitors could do this but Odysseus, who had returned disguised as a beggar. With the aid of the strung bow, Odysseus slaughtered the suitors and then revealed himself to Penelope. In another legend, however, Penelope was not faithful to her husband, but slept with one or all of