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 delineate as dark, melancholic and yet 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 shoemakers last. Despite the boding associated with it, characters in ancient drama embrace conclusion in its scare 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, specially women, fall prey to it and unwittingly unleash chaos that more a great deal that, negatively impacts the lives of the characters. This paper demonstrates how gender biases can be interpreted from the moving picture of finale and the characters justifications of it in two of Sophocles plays Ajax and Women of Trachis and also demonstrates how female finesse 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 managements portrayed as the cowards way out of a difficult situation, whereas the man embraces death in do 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 repellent 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 / object for Achilles, the best and bravest who ever came to Troy (Aj. 66, 83-85). Ajaxs whole sense of ego is shattered in one swift mom ent of induced cult by Athena. She uses her divine powers and tricks him into confusing sheep as member of his army. Ajax seeking penalize on his army, slaughters the sheep, believing them to be the generals of his army and their followers, who had wronged him.