Female Deceit and Gender Bias in Death :: Feminism Feminist Papers

Female Deceit and Gender Bias in Death Death is the end to the natural cycle of life and is be as dark, melancholic and still menacing. The underworld is depicted as a murky and sinister realm where the dead are trapped in a world of eternal darkness. Ancient drama, however, defies the conventional perceptions and representations of termination. Despite the antepast associated with it, characters in ancient drama embrace demise in its shake up glory, rather than face the repercussions of their actions, especially when their honor and pride are at stake. Deceit is also an integral part of ancient drama and characters, especially women, fall prey to it and unwittingly unleash chaos that more much that, negatively impacts the lives of the characters. This paper demonstrates how gender biases can be interpreted from the portrayal of demolition and the characters justifications of it in two of Sophocles plays Ajax and Women of Trachis and also demonstrates how female fast one leads to the death of the principal character(s). Interestingly, the concepts of death and deceit are intertwined. Deceit often leads to death and illustrates gender bias in even the portrayal of death. The womans suicide is almost al government agencys portrayed as the cowards way out of a difficult situation, whereas the man embraces death in found to keep intact his pride and glory, being even braver in death than in life. In both instances of male and female death, female deception plays a vital role and the woman is frequently responsible for creating the disgustful situation. Warrior pride plays a vital role in Ajax, eventually impel the hero to his death. Ajax is portrayed as an accomplished and mighty warrior, eulogized by even his worst enemy, Odysseus, as The bravest man I ever saw / take away for Achilles, the best and bravest who ever came to Troy (Aj. 66, 83-85). Ajaxs whole sense of self-importance is shattered in one swift moment of induced lunacy by Athena. She uses her divine powers and tricks him into confusing sheep as member of his army. Ajax seeking strike back on his army, slaughters the sheep, believing them to be the generals of his army and their followers, who had wronged him.