Antigone Vs. Jocasta

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Women of any society always have had a different role to play than that of men. Psychologically, a woman is to find a mate in order to bring healthy offspring into the world. Conservative thinking tells women to cook, clean, take care of the family, and to perform other miscellaneous domestic chores. Yet, Sophocles also defines the place of a woman in his tragedies: Oedipus the King and Antigone. Women were respected as very powerful and dignified individuals, but at the same time were forbidden to meddle with the affairs of men as they, figuratively, were to stand behind men at all times. The mother and daughter combination of Jocasta, the typical Greek aristocrat, and Antigone, a strong-willed woman who defies her sex role, opposing each other in almost every aspect, clearly portrays the different lives of women at the time of these Greek tragedies.

The political beliefs of both women vary in terms of their personalities. Jocasta obeys the laws of the state and always remain obedient to her husband whether Oedipus or Laius. She epitomizes the stately etiquette of a true aristocratic woman in Thebes in her dialect and manner. There is never any discussion of Jocasta in any trouble simply because she never gets herself into any situation she should not be in. Jocasta's character depicts the idea of a strong woman staying behind the men as she only appears in the final scenes of Oedipus the King with a powerful but small role. In her first words, she attempts to make peace between Oedipus and Creon, pleading with Oedipus not to banish Creon who promises he has done nothing of which Oedipus charges him with doing. Jocasta begs, "For the gods' sake, listen, Oedipus / He's sworn by all the gods, in front of us..." (Ro...

... middle of paper ...

... the law she has broken requires a punishment, but she also knows that Creon has violated a much larger, unwritten, cultural law for which he is ultimately punished by loneliness.

Antigone openly exhibits those masculine qualities hardly coveted by other aristocratic women such as her aggressive and quarrelsome nature and her utter defiance for those authority figures with whom she disagrees. Her mother, Jocasta, indeed shows strength and dignity, sometimes subtly and sometimes bluntly, through her actions and motives encompassed in the play. Although these two characters lie at extreme ends of the political and behavioral spectrum, when Jocasta and Antigone are compared, the qualities and characteristics of a true woman during the time of Sophocles emerge.

Works Cited

Paul Roche. The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles. A Meridian Book: New York, 1996.

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