Joffrion Beasley

The Tragedy of Women

I organized the mid-term around the Moral Objective, but here I will use the role of women in tragedy as my focus and discuss this through the Historical and Literary Objectives.  In some of my other graduate classes, we studied gender and the role of females in a predominantly male-centric society.  I made the decision to go in this direction because I did not realize how far back in the past that the oppression and marginalization of women went.  Gender studies opened my eyes to the language and structures of power.  Consequently, I will analyze Antigone, Death and the King’s Horseman, Oedipus at Colonus, and A Grain of Wheat to explore gender roles and how language and tragedy help define the place of women in both the ancient world and in Africa.

I will begin with the ancient Greek texts of Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus because they represent the earliest transition from a female-centric world to a more patriarchal one.  The vestiges of the role of goddesses in life and society are still apparent.  However, with the Greeks’ focus on honor, reason, and the battle - - all of which are primarily male values - - society’s role for women became marginalized.  Early on in Antigone, Ismene reminds Antigone of her place in society, which is to obey the rules of the state.  Antigone is characterized as wily, crafty, and shifty because she is capable of buying Polynices under the guards’ noses.  Yet, Antigone offers no resistance when she is captured.  Antigone is bold and brave by herself, but under the influence of male power, she submits and becomes passive,  This gives, I believe, the idea that males project their power by their very presence and the Greeks ascribe it as an emanating influence like gravity.  Antigone exhibits two different roles, depending on the presence of males.

There are numerous ways in which the female is characterized differently in relation to males.  Antigone is considered as inflexible and unable to compromise in times of trouble.  By inference, males are the opposite: flexible and reasonable.  Later in the play, Haemon acknowledges exactly this.  Man, he ways, must learn to be flexible.  In addition to all this, the female is labelled as weak, emotional, and evil.  Whenever a character wants to put down another man, they do so by trying to emasculate them by calling them women or that they act like women.  If Creon gives in to Antigone, then she becomes the man and Creon the woman, so Creon resists acquiescing to Antigone.  Also, Creon blames Ismene for helping Antigone, when she did not, solely on the grounds that she is female.  When Creon orders all the people inside the palace, like women, he takes away their power and masculinity.

Similar emasculation tactics occur in Oedipus at Colonus.  The female is embodied and sanctified by the Furies.  They are the female powers that must be placated for men to operate normally.  Consequently, Creon blames the problems of the state on Antigone and other women’s actions.  The Furies are emotional and as a result represent the emotional nature of women.  Oedipus does not address the Furies with respect as equals but out of fear of their vengeful reprisals.  I see so many examples where the female is characterized negatively or as the weaker opposite of male power in these plays.  Antigone is given respect by Oedipus because she has loyally taken care of him, which happens to be the role for the sons, but Polynices and Eteocles did not perform this role.  Only because Antigone exhibited the characteristics and roles of the male sons is she regarded with respect.  She must therefore act like a man in order to be treated decently and equally.

When a woman takes up the mantle of a male role, she is afforded a relatively equal status.  Oedipus calls his sons women who sit at home doing women’s work.  I think that one of the reasons why women were oppressed is because of their power, like the Furies.  Prior to the Greeks, the female goddesses and human females held more positions of power and respect.  Similar to how the patriarchal religions of Judeo-Christian vanquished women and considered them inferior to the male-dominated theocracy, the Greeks marginalized women to suppress their power.  Language was used quite often to emasculate men so they would retain their position of power over women by not wanting to appear weak and inferior.  Additionally, women were kept in place by the language that defined their female nature and role in society.  In none of these tragedies did I find the exaltation of reverence for female characters.  They were portrayed in a negative light.

This negative characterization of women continued in the African tragedies.  In A Grain of Wheat, I saw discussions about how in Mugo’s past history women ruled the land of Agukuju.  In this land, men had no property and they only served the whims of the women.  The Greeks and Afticans changed their historical past by rearranging the power structures.  For the men of Agikuju, they revolted.  They took advantage of the female’s sole perceived “weakness”: sex and pregnancy.  The moral of this story is that men can conquer the female and feminine ways because of their inherent weakness of sexuality.  This ties into the emotional character of the Furies.  The talk of the female rule in Agikuju plays a critical role in Mugo’s present-day story.  The parallelism creates a motivation for the African to resist against the British.  Instead of casting the struggles in racial terms, Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s characterizes the resistance of female power.  The idea of a British queen attempting to rule the black men instigated the revolt.

The only time a woman is treated with respect is when, like Antigone in Oedipus at Colonus, they take up the position in a male role.  Wambui, an elderly and courageous woman, was respected like an elder male only because of her fighting and participation in the resistance like a man.  She did not exhibit traditional and typical female qualities, and as a result was not treated like a woman and inferior.  When a woman acts like a man or adopts a male role in society, the normal respect is conferred on her.  Instances like these, I believe, serve to show that women, far from being weak and inferior, are just the opposite.  Within their confined and male-defined roles, they continue to resist and fight against their oppressors.  They do so by using the only characteristics available to them: male qualities.  Women do not lose their femininity or other qualities but project their power in different and more successful forms.  The Greeks were right, in some degree, to label women as wily and crafty.

The adoption of male roles of power positions is clearly demonstrated in Margery’s relationship with Karanja.  Margery uses her position as a white person to subvert the inferiority of the female’s capabilities of power.  Even in her own culture and society. Margery has no place of power.  However, by coopting the racial structures of power, she adopts that to empower herself over the male Karanja.  By inverting the traditional power roles for Karanja, Margery places herself above Karanja’s status as a male.  The result is that Karanja becomes lower than both, a female and male, a position of inferiority and powerlessness, an outcast.  Then Margery is able to exert control and power over the powerless Karanja.  Her authority reinforces Karanjua’s sense of inferiority and causes him to defer to her position of power. 

The inversion of power structures is also evident in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman.  Early on, when Elesin teases the women and Iyaloja, they automatically feel as though they were the cause of Elesin’s displeasure.  This is the patriarchal disempowerment of females by males in dominant power positions.  Oyaloja, though, uses her place in Elesin’s power structure to warn him that his behavior is not right, that his impulsive sexuality will cause harm to all of their people.  Ironically, Elesin odes not notice that Iyaloja is presenting him with the same argument that is used against women: their sexual nature that has negative and harmful qualities (what I believe I have seen referred to as the “Eve effect”).  Elesin prevails because he uses the language of ritual, culture, and tradition that justify his male lust.  For males, the sexual characteristics are given especial importance and positive significance through controlling the means of hierarchical institutions while the female of similar nature is negative and harmful.  In addition, Elesin’s male-defined moral and ethical systems justify the idea that women are objects that must be handed over, like property, whenever a man requests it.

Finally, the subtle behavior of Jane reflects how women use their inferior position to wield power in an otherwise powerless position.  She notices things like the drums when Simon does not and downplays her intelligence and common sense.  Jane even projects the male-dominated idea of women’s roles in order to move and think more independently.  I think it is interesting that throughout all the tests in both halves of this class, especially in the Greek texts, the women almost always speak the truth, but the men never listen or take them seriously.  Only after the fact do they realize the women were right.  This leads me to believe that the Greek plays might be a social commentary of prevalent social and patriarchal notions of female roles in society.  I get the sense that Sophocles and Aeschylus are telling their audiences that they know women are right and can contribute to society, but people persist in not listening to them or think them weak and incapable of being equal contributors to society.  Just as Jane knows that Olunde will inherit his father’s role as horseman and Simon does not, Soyinka presses home the point to his audience that society should listen to women and take them seriously.

These tragedies I see as a means for women and other female roles to give voice to their inferiority by presenting their power in a way that gives them the opportunity to contribute.  The lessons are that the power structures in place oppress women and that they will not be oppressed or accept the lower status of roles in society.  Women will use whatever means necessary to exert their influence and be respected as equals, despite the male-dominated attempts to the contrary.