Comparison Of Female Characters In Sophocles And Euripides

In both the Sophocles and Euripides ' plays, females had a central role in how events turned out. There are both similarities and differences in these female characters throughout the different plays. One of the similarities is that all plays contain certain female characters that take fate into their own hands, which causes problems. They differ, however, by how they take fate in their own hands and the methods that they use. While some of the women are fairly peaceful in how they carry themselves and how they don’t harm anyone, the other is very aggressive and carries out to harm many people out of hate. In the Sophocles’ plays, Antigone and Oedipus the King, Antigone is a female character of importance. Antigone is a character that …show more content…
Unlike Antigone in the Sophocles plays, Medea’s actions are based solely on anger from the broken vows that she received from Jason. Also, Medea does descend from an immortal line, which gives her powers and abilities that Antigone does not possess. These two traits makes Medea far more dangerous than Antigone could ever be. While Antigone just wanted to bury her loved one after he died in the battle with his brother, Medea wanted to kill hers. Medea is also willing to go to any length to get revenge on Jason, including ending his bloodline by killing their children. This is similar to Antigone, but Antigone was only willing to sacrifice herself to give her brother a proper burial, she was never willing to sacrifice loved ones for her cause. “Don’t die along with me, nor make your own/ that which you did not do. My death’s enough.” (Sophocles Antigone 546-547). This quote proves the fact that Antigone never wanted anyone else to get hurt, unlike Medea. She said this to her sister, Ismene, after Ismene tries to also confess to the crime. Antigone also tells Ismene to love Creon, the man that is putting her to death for the crime. This is far different than what Medea would have done, which is try to get revenge on everyone involved in the matter, which includes both Creon and …show more content…
Antigone also seemed to act with a clear head and after making a logical decision. Medea, on the other hand, only seems to act out of passion. This can be seen in her whole life story that we were told. First, Medea decides to help Jason because of her love for him, which is a passionate feeling. This passionate feeling of love led her to kill and cut up her brother to help Jason, something that Antigone never would have done. Next, Medea act out of the passionate feelings of hate and revenge to kill multiple people in Greece, including her own