The Role Of Women In Sophocles

The tragic plays have been an important part of the Greek history and women had played an important roles in the plays to demonstrate about Greek society. A tragedy is a drama that represents events that lead to destruction, accident, death, or natural calamity. The character of a tragic dramas have to be dead or shown the misfortune that leads to the downfall of the main character. There are many famous playwrights that have written tragedies, one of the name is Sophocles. Sophocles is one of the popular Greek tragedy playwrights that had written many plays in Greek literature. The ideas of Sophocles plays are gender based or distinguish between two genders: men and women. It revolves around how Greek society deals with the social ranking of men and women. Women have always been the focus for Sophocles

This is the role of a women in the marriage and the family, but women also have some roles in the polis such as increase the family and give heirs to the city. The tragic plays have affected the role of the family in society and also brought changes in the women’s position. The plays have portrayed women in the fifth century as developed, and belonged to the mythological households. The plays describe the situations between females as a source of conflicts in the families. Antigone and Electra have shown the reality of fifth century by demonstrating the female conflict to the audience. Antigone is the famous play written by Sophocles. Antigone is the story of daughter, and sister of Oedipus and the mother Jocasta. So, Antigone portrays the three important role of a women in the society: daughter, sister, and mother. In the Antigone, the conflicts of family and polis, male and female are noted and discussed and had explained the definition of the family and the state. Obedience and disobedience is also the main factor between the two sisters in Antigone. The female characters in the play is Antigone and Ismene. Sophocles has portrayed