Greek Tragedy Journal 3 (Gender Roles)

Sophocles establishes a unique gender role when he introduces Jocasta into the play. When Oedipus mentions Jocasta he talks highly about her and how they both rule equally as a king and queen. In one part of the play Oedipus even tells Jocasta how he prefers her over some men; this lends to the idea that women have some power but men are still the major power players in this Greek society. When Jocasta is introduced into the play she seems like a good role model for women. She seems to act as a peace keeper between Creon and Oedipus; she even goes onto help both sides of the argument to help settle the feud. In the end of the reading though she seems to go hysterical as she puts the pieces of the story together and realizes what she has done (some could argue this as a warning to women, but her actions seem justified by the situation she is put in). Jocasta also seems to take a more sensible approach to problems compared to Creon and Oedipus; the men seem to make decisions based on the current information at hand while Jocasta wants to learn about all aspects of the story. Through out the story Jocasta is spoken to very politely; sometimes Oedipus can be very abrupt with her though. Jocasta in the beginning seems to be the voice of reason but later breaks as she learns about the horrible truth. With this being said Jocasta is not a good example of a gender role considering her social rank as a queen