Analyzing The Feminine Agenda In Plays English Literature Essay

In the three dramas, Oedipus Rex, Death of a Salesman, and Macbeth the feminine characters craft their own personal agendas into the lives of the tragic heroes. Jocasta, Linda, and Lady Macbeth are all similar in their dynamic nature, ability to enable, and their need to care for others. The exploration of these similarities can also be considered the driving force which leads to each of the tragic heroes to their ultimate fates.

This woman uses female methods of acquiring power- that is, manipulation- to further her supposed male ambition. The remarkable effectiveness of Lady Macbeth’s manipulation is apparent in several ways. She overrides all of his objections to the plot she construes. When Macbeth hesitates in murdering Duncan, Lady Macbeth persistently taunts his lack manhood and courage until he feels it necessary to prove himself. Interestingly, Lady Macbeth and her husband are presented as being deeply in love. However, many of Lady Macbeth’s speeches imply that her control over Macbeth is merely sexual. Lady Macbeth’s strong will persists throughout the murder of the king. Afterwards, however, she begins a slow slide into madness. Just as ambition affects her more so before the crime, so does the guilt afterwards. She falls victim to guilt and madness to a greater extent than her husband. The play implies that women can be as ambitious and cruel as men, but social constraints deny them the opportunities to pursue the ambition on their own.

By the close of the play, Lady Macbeth has been reduced to sleepwalking and attempting to remove invisible bloodstains. When the plague of guilt has finally done its worse, Lady Macbeth’s sensitivity becomes her weakness. Subsequently, her husband’s cruelty and her own guilt recoil on her, sending her into a madness which she is unable to cope with. In the end, she drives herself mad because of her guilt over the murders and she apparently kills herself.

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Linda Loman is Willy’s link to reality. She serves as a force of reason throughout the play. Linda is by far the toughest, most realistic, and most levelheaded character in the play. She sees what her husband is going through. Despite all of his failures and weaknesses, she supports him, loves him, and occasionally enables his behavior. Linda realizes that Willy is just an ordinary man living in the times, but she does not place blame on him. If anything, she loves him more because of it. Linda assumes the role of the protector, the defender, and the respecter. She protects Willy when Biff fights with him. Linda defends Willy to her sons who believe that he is going crazy. Also, she respects him enough to pretend that she is unaware of the fact that he is trying to kill himself and that he has lost his salary. She knows that Willy is suicidal, irrational, and difficult to deal with; however, she goes along with Willy’s fantasies in order to protect him from the criticism of others, as well as his own self-criticism. Linda tries to protect him, but her efforts are in vain.

Linda enables Willy in many ways, but she also encourages him. She gently nudges him when it comes to paying the bills and communicating with Biff and she does not lose her temper when he becomes irate. Linda knows that Willy is secretly borrowing money from Charley to pay the life insurance and other bills. Despite all of this, Linda does nothing, afraid to aggravate Willy’s fragile mental condition. She goes as far as throwing Biff and Happy out of the house when their behavior threatens to upset Willy.

Linda views freedom as an escape from debt, the reward of total ownership of the material goods that symbolize success and stability. Willy’s prolonged obsession with the American dream seems, over the long years of his marriage, to have left Linda internally conflicted. She appears to have kept her emotional life intact. As such, she represents the emotional core of the drama. Linda is a character driven by desperation and fear. Even though Willy is often rude to her, she protects him at all costs. According to Linda, Willy is “only a little boat looking for a harbor” (___________). She loves Willy, and more importantly, she accepts all of his shortcomings.

Jocasta’s character is only strongly represented in the closing scenes in the play. Throughout the play, Jocasta tested the beliefs of those around her by feigning disbelief in the gods herself. Though she put up this false front, she did keep her faith. At the beginning of the scene wherein a messenger relayed word of Polybus’ death and Oedipus’ right to the throne of Corinth, we see Jocasta praying. In her first words, she attempts to make peace between Oedipus and Creon, pleading with Oedipus not Tiresias’s terrifying prophecies as false. Unlike Oedipus, Jocasta distrusts the oracles and believes that whatever happens will do so by unforeseeable chance. However, she is still wary enough to honor Apollo with offerings in a crisis. Jocasta carries garlands and incense to the altar and tries to appeal to Apollo to purify the city of Thebes. Jocasta solves the riddle of Oedipus’s identity before Oedipus does, and she expresses her love for her son and husband in her desire to protect him from this knowledge. She pleads with him to stop asking questions regarding the circumstances.

Jocasta’s character is intelligent and capable, but not driven to exploration as Oedipus. She carries her own agenda about what should be known and looked into. Jocasta’s character is used by the gods, in a way, to test Oedipus’s faith. After accusing Creon of conspiracy and treason, Oedipus relates to Jocasta the details of his meeting with Tiresias. Jocasta proceeds to plant doubts of the gods by telling Oedipus the story of the Delphian Oracle and the circumstances surrounding Laius’ death. Again, after Polybus’ death, she excitedly tells Oedipus that his prophecy was obviously untrue, though it was not, and by doing so she attempts to hint that the oracles – and thus the gods – are false.

It can be drawn that Jocasta is forced to perform such tasks for the gods because she tried to avoid an earlier prophecy. By tying her child’s feet together and casting him out, she attempted to defeat the gods, and this disbelief of course angered them. Her punishment, then, was to test the beliefs of the very child she cast out.

Jocasta was, in this way, a victim. Though it was by her own doing that this penalty was cast upon her, it was not something she was happy to do, which becomes apparent when she realizes the truth in her earlier prophecy. It is at this moment that she becomes aware of her punishment, and in desperation kills herself. After the realization of the truth, Jocasta’s own panicked grief impels her to suicide.

Jocasta is a victim in Oedipus Rex, but not as much as she is a catalyst for Oedipus’ own victimization. She keeps her faith throughout and tries to relieve Oedipus of his. Because of this, readers may in turn pity her and loathe her. But the gods tested the king of Thebes through her – the main goal of the play – and both he and she failed.

In the exploration of Oedipus Rex, Death of a Salesman, and Macbeth the feminine characters obvious self-interest plays an important role in their counter parts downfalls. Jocasta, Linda, and Lady Macbeth are all similar in their dynamic nature, ability to enable, and their need to care for others. The previous exploration illustrates the female agenda in contrast to the tragic heroes.