Misogyny Pervades The Picture Aeschylus ' Sophocles ' Antigone

In Homer’s The Odyssey, Sophocles’ Antigone, and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, women resist the patriarchy through virtuous mean. Virtuous mean is when citizens determine deficiency or excess in relation to social norms. In The Odyssey, Penelope opposes the patriarchy by tricking the suitors. She knows they won’t leave until she marries one or Odysseus comes back. She cannot force them to leave because it goes against the social norm of the law of hospitality but she sees that they are acting in excess by overstaying their welcome and courting a married woman, something that also goes against the social norm. In Antigone, Antigone resists the patriarchy by disobeying her king and burying her brother because she knows what she is doing is right.

The female characters portrayed in Aeschylus and Sophocles’ works have considerably different personalities and roles, yet those females all have the common weaknesses of being short-sighted and stubborn. They intensify the conflicts within their families while being inconsiderate of the impacts that they may bring to their nations and societies, which leads to consequences that they are incapable of taking responsibilities for. Clytemnestra and Antigone, two major characters in their respective author’s works, possess different motivations for their deeds in the stories. While Clytemnestra is driven by the desire of revenge to murder her husband Agamemnon, Antigone acts against Creon’s will and strives to properly bury her brother. Despite having different motivations and personalities, Clytemnestra and Antigone both commit

In Aeschylus’s trilogy, Oresteia, the tragic manifesto paints a bloody chain of murder, adultery, betrayal, and kinslaying, in which DIKE (justice) and the relation of women to social and family structure serve as central themes. The Greeks were a misogynistic culture, in which women were relegated to an inferior status in society. Women were only given a limited voice because the family was the sovereign unit of society. The rule of justice stood for patriarchy. Cassandra’s importance is merely in the first play but her prophetic visions and declarations about the House of Atreus peal through the entire trilogy. She’s presented as a true inferior female to male superiority with little to no voice. Contrastingly, the female character,

Misogyny is a degrading form of gender oppression that plagues the view of women in society. This notions’ relevancy to Euripides’ Ancient Greek tragedy, Medea, is debated. This tragedy focuses on a woman named Medea who was so driven by her emotions that it led to the passionate and vengeful act of filicide- the killing of of one’s own children. Euripides' portrayal of Medea and women in general leads people believe he is misogynist- a person with a hostile outlook on women. Others believe his portrayal show that he is a promoter of women's rights and equality who are limited by their patriarchal society- a society in which men hold authority in every aspect. Clearly, Euripides' portrayal of women show his misogyny because women were ultimately

Despite being written in a period of time in which women were considered “Third class” citizens, and being considered expendable, the portrayal of women in ancient Greek literature is consistently rebutting societal norms through the roles of intelligent mortal women such Penelope from the Odyssey, or Antigone from the aptly named “Antigone”. These women, whose intelligence and blatant bull-headed stubbornness is displayed rather early in these stories, both rebuke the societal norms explained by the stories, and consistently proves that women are not just ancillary characters literature, and are capable of besting their male cohorts in challenges of wit and loyalty.

The play Antigone by Sophocles is a Greek tragedy set in Ancient Greece. The play depicts a young woman, Antigone, who chooses to disobey the king's law by burying her brother, Polyneices, which simultaneously, is obeying her god's law. King Creon punishes her for choices. Sophocles’ Antigone and its’ depiction of an, arguably, proto-feminist is, also, an accurate portrayal of women and men’s roles in Ancient Greece. Sophocles uses Creon to portray male dominance and Antigone and Ismene to portray female archetypes in Greek Culture.

“‘You come against me with hatred, repression, and violence. I come against you in the name of god’” as Bree Newsome illegally removes the confederate flag from the capital of South Carolina in 2015. The confederate flag symbolizes racial segregation and Bree was a colored woman who did not like that the flag showed support of this. She acted upon what she aspired was equal to the diverse citizens in America. Correspondingly, Sophocles’ play Antigone was along the same lines as reality. Bree Newsome’s actions are comparable to Antigone’s behavior by making choices that are against the state laws.

In Homer’s Odyssey, the relationship between Penelope and Odysseus represents the “ideal" according to the traditional Greek values, while in Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Agamemnon’s relationship challenged it. In this paper, I will argue that even though Clytemnestra did over step her role as a woman, her decision to kill her husband was justified because Agamemnon killed their daughter and he brought back Cassandra as a lover.

Living in ancient patriarchal Greek society, women were held to strict values and were always subordinate to men. Sophoclean tragedy provides a window into this society, and reflects on the topic of gender inequality; however, the works show a disconnect of relativity between different points of view. While male characters in both Oedipus the King and Antigone presume that their female counterparts are held equally to them, the female characters are much more aware of societal differences that justify their inferiority.

In the patriarchal societies of ancient world, female was always the minority group which was suppressed and restricted regardless of their talents and power. No matter how much struggle they put upon gaining individual identity, they usually ended up with failure. Dido, in Virgil’s Aeneid, and Antigone, in Sophocles’s Antigone, have very different backgrounds and personalities, yet share the similar experiences in fighting against their fates. Their eventual failure and suicides reveal ancient world’s firm male supremacy and ancient societies’ prejudice towards females.

Euripides and Sophocles wrote powerful tragedies that remain influential to this day. The vast majority of work recovered from this time is by male authorship. What remains about women of this time is written through the lens of male authors’ perspective and beliefs about the role of women in Greek culture. The works of these two playwrights frequently characterize women as unstable and dangerous. Agave, Antigone, and Medea are all undoubtedly the driving force behind the tragic action in these plays. It is their choices that lead to the pain and death of the people around them. Through an examination of the evidence from three separate works, Antigone, The Bacchae, and The Medea, the role of women in ancient Greek tragedy becomes clear. The actions of Agave, Antigone, and Medea repeatedly prove their characters instability and danger.

The role of women in Greek literature has demoralized them and showing them in a maligned light. The women are portrayed as frail, cruel, insensitive, or as seductresses. These characteristics have been integrated into today’s society and [have] built the standards and defined the moral outlook of women. However, in Greek mythology, powerful and strong women are not as well celebrated, such as Athena. Homer’s The Odyssey construes the positive and negative role of women through the epic poem. The women in the poem are depicted through the contrasting actions of Penelope and the maids, in addition with the opposite personalities between the goddess Athena and the nymph Calypso.

Women in ancient Greece had very few rights in comparison to male citizens. Women were unable to vote, own property, or inherit wealth. A woman’s place was in the home and her purpose in life was to rear children. Considering this limited role in society, we see a diverse cast of female characters in Greek mythology. We are presented with women that are powerful and warlike, or sexualized, submissive and emotionally unstable. In many myths, we encounter subversive behavior from women, suggesting, perhaps, the possibility of female empowerment. While produced in an ostensibly misogynistic and oppressive society, these myths consider the possibility for a collapse of male power and the patriarchal system. In Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey,

The stories that as a whole make up the body of ancient Greek mythology have treatedthe complex subject of women in various ways. Although women are generally considered to beweak and subordinate to their husbands, there exist some examples of strong, even heroic womenin certain myths. Such “extraordinary” women include Deianeira, Phaedra, Medea, Penelope,and Clytemnestra, among others. This discussion of women will focus on the latter two,comparing and contrasting them and addressing the ways in which the former is often considereda “good” wife and the latter a “bad” wife. The comparison of Penelope and Clytemnestra willultimately show that, in certain ways, the line between “good” and “bad” wife is rather blurryand the distinction between husband-killing monster and devoted, faithful wife is not as clear-cutas one might expect.The major works in which Penelope and Clytemnestra appear are Homer’s Odyssey andAeschylus’ Oresteia, particularly the Agamemnon. One of the first things to notice about theseworks is that they were both written by men, for men. Given the ancient Greek context, this is arather obvious observation, but it deserves to be pointed out because it should be expected thatmen would have a biased view of women. Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days describe thecreation of Pandora, the first of “the race of women”, as a gift and punishment from the gods.While she is made to “look like a goddess immortal, / having the lovely, desirable shape of a

In this paper, I will discuss the different ways Clytemnestra isn't your typical female character. In most of Greek mythology women were mostly seen as passive, weak, and constantly taking orders from men. She was the complete opposite, she was really a one of a kind. More masculine than some of the men in the stories, and definitely more masculine than feminine she was a very strong, solid, independent, powerful character throughout Agamemnon. The story definitely wouldn’t be as controversial as it was if it weren't for the boldness, extremely deceptive tactics, manipulative ways, and ruthless acts of Clytemnestra. She constantly defied the role that was given to women in the art of ancient Greece, she paved the way for powerful women characters for the future.