2020 IB Extended Essays

because they were permitted to have more than one female companion so the reality of the plan would not have worked. Nevertheless, the play did reference similarities of the reality of women’s political status and thus, conveying the play to be semi-accurate.

Lastly the play Hecuba by Euripides, links the reality of the patriarchal system to the fiction of woman breaking the political norm and stepping outside the Okios. The play follows a wife, Praim who exacts revenge for her son’s death by murdering her murderers two sons. However, due to the fall of Troy she is kidnapped by Polymestor, her son’s murderers and realises that her two sons have been murdered. She plans that the next time he visits the fallen city, through trickery and manipulation she will render him blind and kill his two sons as revenge. However, in 5 th century Athens, laws were created governing familial relationships to dead kin (Hecuba and the Uses of Revenge, 2019) stating that vendetta is not an option for mourning. However, Hecuba goes against political norms and disregards the law created by men and avenges her son. Nevertheless, her detachment towards the democratic system in Greece truly shows women’s aspirational dreams of holding a political standpoint. Nevertheless, Athenian art inaccurately portrayed women’s political status in society due to Hecuba never being able to kill a man without repercussion from the law and the opportunity for revenge. In comparison to the three plays representation of the political status women held in Athenian society, one of the main characteristics of Athens was limiting the power women held politically. Eva Canterella, a well-known classical historian, explains that “The Greek city represents the perfect realization of a political plan to exclude women” due to their incapability to make basic decisions. She goes on to explain that the Athenian legal system has always been problematic towards women due to the invention of democracy which allowed the political structure of Athens to be further developed. However, with an increasing political system women were strictly forbidden to be involved in any form of political status and political policy. only 10-20% (3,000) of the polis population attended (Mark Cartwright,