I would rather be a Spartan than an Athenian. The lifestyle of a Spartan and an Athenian are vastly different and a women’s role is closer to ours than the Athenian‘s. The Spartans respected their women and they were held up with high regard; something that is vastly different than any other Greek city-state. Women have rights in Sparta similar to rights for women in our nation. At a young age, women are raised much differently than their Ancient Greek counterparts.
When Creon leaves Jocasta asks Oedipus what happened he explained the whole thing. She tells him not to believe a word that the oracle said because one he predicted that her son would kill his father and marry his mother and this had never happened. She had a son with Laius but after learning of this prophecy he had the childs feet bound and thrown in
When Creon learns that Antigone has buried her brother, he becomes furious and sentences Antigone to death despite his son’s and Antigone’s fiancé pleading, as well as a warning from the prophet. But as the prophet for-told, the gods are on Antigone’s side and for Creon’s crime he loses his only son, Haemon and his wife. The begging of the play, Antigone has her sister, Isemen outside the city gates. Antigone is trying to get Ismene to help her bury their brother, Polyncies. But Ismene refuses to help her sister, fearing the death penalty installed by Creon.
The main character Antigone is presented as a calm and cool woman. She has rational reasons for burying her “traitor” of a brother: she feels that the law of the gods, θέμις (ironically a feminine noun), is much more important than the law of man (the masculine noun νόμος). She tells Creon, “I did not think your edicts so powerful that you, a mortal, could overstep the unwritten and unbending laws of the gods” (lines 434-6), showing that she has no conviction at all to follow a man who ignores the rites that “Hades demands” (line 496). Ismene, Antigone’s more submissive sister is totally against what Antigone is doing, but supports her no matter what. Ismene is the “perfect” woman in antiquity, shown by her statement to Antigone: “We must not forget that we were born women, unfit to battle men, and also that we are ruled by those more powerful, and must obey this command and others harsher still” (lines 56-8).
They also believed that they were superior to women and that women should remain obedient and oppressed, and not question their husbands or fathers. The conversations that the females in the play have when they are not in the presence of men seem to prove that they have accepted society’s expectations of them, and that when they are in the company of men, they behave the way men believe to be natural. It is for this reason that when Desdemona married Othello without her father, Brabantio’s consent, he states that her actions were “against all rules of nature” (I, iii, 101). Many feminist critics view Desdemona as submissive and oppressed. Desdemona, herself, gives evidence to this claim when she states that she is “obedient” (III, iii, 89) to Othello no matter what.
This can be seen as a very sexist ‘idealisation’ for men to enforce on women; just because they were the opposite sex, why did they not get the same rights to live as good and full a life as men? It was men that set up the idea that women should not be seen or heard, as the C5 Athenian statesman Perikles states the ideal – “Your (i.e. women’s) great glory is not to be inferior to what God has made you, and the greatest glory of a woman is
First my family was grieving the death of Mercutio, another death at the hand of a Capulet. Then my son is banished and the next day – dead! I had not even spoken to my dear boy before he fled the city! There is no way I can be held accountable. I implore you, my Prince not to persecute the woman who’s already lost the light of her life, but instead turn your attention to the real culprits of this unbelievable crime – The Capulets.
Character: Laertes In Hamlet, Act IV, scene v, Laertes comes back from France. Furious to learn that his father is dead, Laertes wants to avenge his death. Claudius tries to clam him down with no prevail. Gertrude also tries to pacify Laertes, but the matter only becomes worse asOphelia reenters, insane. This ignites Laertes even more to find out who is responsible for Polonius’ death.
In the play Antigone; By Sophocles, Antigone’s two brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles, were murdered by one another when Eteocles tried to stop Polyneices from entering the city of Thebes. Antigone’s uncle Creon, the King of Thebes, graced Eteocles with a proper burial while Polyneices body was sentenced to be put in the dessert and rot. No burial was granted and the people of Thebes where not even allowed to morn his death. When news of this law had reached Antigone, she was outraged and determined to give her brother the burial he deserved despite what Creon had ordered. Ismene, Antigone’s sister, agreed that Polyneices deserved a proper burial but was not going to go against the laws set out by her uncle and the King.
C. 2010) thus meaning that a woman’s character depended on her ability to accept being the lowest status in society and abiding by the laws of men. There are three woman characters in Antigone who all portray different characteristics of a woman at that time. The first obviously being Antigone. She is so over come by the passion of doing the right thing by her family that she presents herself as a rebel. She shows that she has the ability to justify her reasoning to break the law, ‘To do him honour in the world below’ and believes that the laws of religion are more important than the law of her land.