EURİPİDES’İN MEDEA’SI, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’İN MACBETH’İ VE ÖZEN YULA’NIN GAYRİ RESMİ ROXELANA’SINDAKİ BASKIN KADIN FİGÜRLERİNİN TEMATOLOJİK BİR KARŞILAŞTIRMASI

Abstract

This paper presents a thematological comparison to the portrayal of powerful woman characters in Euripides’s Medea, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Özen Yula’s Unofficial Roxelana. The feminist analysis of the three plays indicates that women are portrayed as always seeking power, control, and recognition. Their desire for power is tested by patriarchy on several trials and tribulations. Even though the three female characters belong to different cultures and times, they share common themes of patriarchal oppression, desperate desires for power and recognition. The three women are observed to deviate from expected gender roles by exhibiting unconventional manlike behaviours according to the patriarchal framework. The feminist criticism reveals the motivations behind their deviation from their culturally constructed gender roles. Through the thematological analysis, as a subfield of comparative literature, the selected texts are compared in their relation to each other in terms of their unique themes by the help of feminist criticism.