Women in Greek Tragedies
Aeschylus: Agamemnon; Sophocles: Women of Trachis, Electra; Euripides: Medea
For a genre that is written entirely by men, Greek tragedy is surprising in showing much concern for the "woman question": what constitutes a woman? In the four plays that I will be briefly examining, only one of them (Women of Trachis) tackles the question positively; Agamemnon and Medea both look at women who transgress their gender role. Electra is a commentary of the overall problem with the Greek gender of woman.
The central theme of Agamemnon, Women of Trachis and Medea is how a woman should react to an adultrous husband. Clytemnestra and Medea are superficially portrayed as monsters because of their unwillingness to submit to their husbands' will. Both women take drastic measures in order to get back at their husbands: Clytemnestra splits Agamenmon's head in half; Medea kills Jason's new bride, his father in law and his children in order to spite him. Killing one's husband is unconceivable in any patriarchal society; killing one's children is even worse. As Jason says, there is no previous examples of a parent intentionally killing one's offsprings. On the other hand, Deianira tries to win back her husband's heart; she is just very dumb to believe in Nessus the centaur.
As monstrous as Clytemnestra and Medea may be, and as stupid as Deianira is, the key issue really is not about how women should accept their husbands' will; it is about why husbands push their wives to such extremities. The three women all have one commonality: they are actual human beings. I do not mean this as a trivial statement, but patriarchy has a tendency to treat women as exchange objects, with both (to use Marxist terms) use and exchange value. That is to say, a woman can both be an object that symbolizes wealth and power (as in the case of Jason and his new bride, daughter of Creon) and a baby making machine. But we know that all three playwrights conceive women as more than just objects: Clytemnestra, as vile as she may be, is a human being with loneliness (10 years since Agamemnon left for Troy), love (for her sacrificed daughter) and desire (for Aegithus). Medea is a woman of human passion: her love for Jason is so intense that she was willing to betray her family, and when she in turn was betrayed for Jason, her love turns into bitter hate. We know that she loves her children; at the same time, she hates Jason even more. This is not something to be expected from a woman who is just an object of use and desire. Deianira is also a full flesh woman, who longs for her husband and suffers for him in his absence. But because the gender of women calls for passivity, we do not see their human passions manifested in actions.
When we do see these actions, they become monstrous because we cannot accept an active woman who will actually be "immodest" and do want she wants. If the genders were reversed, we would not be as surprised and shocked. Part of the extremities of these women's actions have to do with an attempt to show what is being repressed in the mind of the objectified woman. Women have always submitted to men; for the most part they never questioned men's authority. But why should men's authority be unquestioned? The critical awareness of these three plays come from the fact that as monstrous and dumb as these women may be, we are made to sympathize with them. We are not meant to like the men in the plays: Agamemnon is arrogant, Jason is horny and Heracles is whiny. The playwrights point out the problem of the double standard of gender and how it come be hurtful to half of the population.
Sophocles' Electra then can be read as a summarizing statement of Greek tragedies' criticism of gender. A woman who is faithful to the patriarchal order is rendered helpless and identity-less. Electra exists only in relation to other characters: faithful to her father Agamemnon, forever waiting for her brother Orestes, in contrasting philosophy with her weak and submissive sister Chrysothemis, hateful to her mother Clytemnestra and suppressed by Aegisthus. Her sole purpose of existence then is to wait for Orestes to revenge for her father - she does not even do it herself. Electra should be the perfect woman in patriarchal terms, yet I do not think any one of us (male or female) want to be like her. She is also the extremity of femininity (in a very bizarre way - Chrysothemis is actually the ideal Greek woman). And rightfully enough, Hoffmannstal and Strauss' version of Sophocles' Elektra does have Elektra die in the end - Orestes has done his deed; she has served her purpose in life.
But even if we do not want to be like Electra, there is a certain quality of sincerity we admire about her. Her word is her action. She holds no double standard - what is wrong is wrong is wrong. In order to uphold the Father she is willing to go through physical and emotional pains. She is much more than what Jason conceives women as: creatures who only want sex. On the other hand, it is the men who only want sex. Electra is direct and makes no delay of any sort. When Orestes finally got Aegisthus, the first thing Electra tells him to do is kill him - no more words, she says. The men, in contrast, are horrible with words in the play. Orestes and his old servant lie to get what they wish to achieve; Aegisthus uses words to delay his death. Words are spoken by men, and they speak them in doubles: men always excuse themselves with words (e.g. Jason), but if we are willing to examine the words objectively (such as in a theatrical context), we realize that those words are hypocritical - they are bunch of lies. The hypocrisy of masculinity masks itself in a language that is Man made.
Women in Greek tragedies do not usually get good endings. At the same time, they are also the majority of the tragic heroes. Amongst the most famous tragic heroes, we have Antigone, Electra and Medea. When we read or watch the tragedies, we are meant to see the problems with gender in our society. Of course the playwrights (nor I) are proposing that we should completely give up our gender identities and rebel in any and every way possible; on the contrary, gender identities are capable of organizing a society into a functional unit. What the playwrights want us to be aware is the problems with the current gender system, and that we should, if not fix it, at least beware of the pains of others.
For a genre that is written entirely by men, Greek tragedy is surprising in showing much concern for the "woman question": what constitutes a woman? In the four plays that I will be briefly examining, only one of them (Women of Trachis) tackles the question positively; Agamemnon and Medea both look at women who transgress their gender role. Electra is a commentary of the overall problem with the Greek gender of woman.
The central theme of Agamemnon, Women of Trachis and Medea is how a woman should react to an adultrous husband. Clytemnestra and Medea are superficially portrayed as monsters because of their unwillingness to submit to their husbands' will. Both women take drastic measures in order to get back at their husbands: Clytemnestra splits Agamenmon's head in half; Medea kills Jason's new bride, his father in law and his children in order to spite him. Killing one's husband is unconceivable in any patriarchal society; killing one's children is even worse. As Jason says, there is no previous examples of a parent intentionally killing one's offsprings. On the other hand, Deianira tries to win back her husband's heart; she is just very dumb to believe in Nessus the centaur.
As monstrous as Clytemnestra and Medea may be, and as stupid as Deianira is, the key issue really is not about how women should accept their husbands' will; it is about why husbands push their wives to such extremities. The three women all have one commonality: they are actual human beings. I do not mean this as a trivial statement, but patriarchy has a tendency to treat women as exchange objects, with both (to use Marxist terms) use and exchange value. That is to say, a woman can both be an object that symbolizes wealth and power (as in the case of Jason and his new bride, daughter of Creon) and a baby making machine. But we know that all three playwrights conceive women as more than just objects: Clytemnestra, as vile as she may be, is a human being with loneliness (10 years since Agamemnon left for Troy), love (for her sacrificed daughter) and desire (for Aegithus). Medea is a woman of human passion: her love for Jason is so intense that she was willing to betray her family, and when she in turn was betrayed for Jason, her love turns into bitter hate. We know that she loves her children; at the same time, she hates Jason even more. This is not something to be expected from a woman who is just an object of use and desire. Deianira is also a full flesh woman, who longs for her husband and suffers for him in his absence. But because the gender of women calls for passivity, we do not see their human passions manifested in actions.
When we do see these actions, they become monstrous because we cannot accept an active woman who will actually be "immodest" and do want she wants. If the genders were reversed, we would not be as surprised and shocked. Part of the extremities of these women's actions have to do with an attempt to show what is being repressed in the mind of the objectified woman. Women have always submitted to men; for the most part they never questioned men's authority. But why should men's authority be unquestioned? The critical awareness of these three plays come from the fact that as monstrous and dumb as these women may be, we are made to sympathize with them. We are not meant to like the men in the plays: Agamemnon is arrogant, Jason is horny and Heracles is whiny. The playwrights point out the problem of the double standard of gender and how it come be hurtful to half of the population.
Sophocles' Electra then can be read as a summarizing statement of Greek tragedies' criticism of gender. A woman who is faithful to the patriarchal order is rendered helpless and identity-less. Electra exists only in relation to other characters: faithful to her father Agamemnon, forever waiting for her brother Orestes, in contrasting philosophy with her weak and submissive sister Chrysothemis, hateful to her mother Clytemnestra and suppressed by Aegisthus. Her sole purpose of existence then is to wait for Orestes to revenge for her father - she does not even do it herself. Electra should be the perfect woman in patriarchal terms, yet I do not think any one of us (male or female) want to be like her. She is also the extremity of femininity (in a very bizarre way - Chrysothemis is actually the ideal Greek woman). And rightfully enough, Hoffmannstal and Strauss' version of Sophocles' Elektra does have Elektra die in the end - Orestes has done his deed; she has served her purpose in life.
But even if we do not want to be like Electra, there is a certain quality of sincerity we admire about her. Her word is her action. She holds no double standard - what is wrong is wrong is wrong. In order to uphold the Father she is willing to go through physical and emotional pains. She is much more than what Jason conceives women as: creatures who only want sex. On the other hand, it is the men who only want sex. Electra is direct and makes no delay of any sort. When Orestes finally got Aegisthus, the first thing Electra tells him to do is kill him - no more words, she says. The men, in contrast, are horrible with words in the play. Orestes and his old servant lie to get what they wish to achieve; Aegisthus uses words to delay his death. Words are spoken by men, and they speak them in doubles: men always excuse themselves with words (e.g. Jason), but if we are willing to examine the words objectively (such as in a theatrical context), we realize that those words are hypocritical - they are bunch of lies. The hypocrisy of masculinity masks itself in a language that is Man made.
Women in Greek tragedies do not usually get good endings. At the same time, they are also the majority of the tragic heroes. Amongst the most famous tragic heroes, we have Antigone, Electra and Medea. When we read or watch the tragedies, we are meant to see the problems with gender in our society. Of course the playwrights (nor I) are proposing that we should completely give up our gender identities and rebel in any and every way possible; on the contrary, gender identities are capable of organizing a society into a functional unit. What the playwrights want us to be aware is the problems with the current gender system, and that we should, if not fix it, at least beware of the pains of others.
posted by Tristan at 10:50 a.m.
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