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Comparison-Contrast of Lady Macbeth and Jocasta

In Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and Macbeth by Shakespeare, we see to important woman
that are vitally for both tragedies. In Oedipus Rex, we have Jocasta and in Macbeth, Lady
Macbeth. These two women have some different aspects and other where they are alike. Three
points can be: their deaths, personalities and aswife.
A first point to compare is their deaths. Both committed suicide, because they were
feeling guilty in some way by their actions. Jocasta decides to hang herself. Jocasta kills herself
after realizing that Oedipus was her son and by this discovering the true; that they committed
incest. She hangs herself over the bed where she and Laius conceived Oedipus and with Oedipus
conceived their sons and daughters.
In the other hand Lady Macbeth first goes insane. Then she jumps from one of the towers
of the castle. The guilty and remorse are eating her from the inside out. She began by seeing
blood in her arms that wouldnt came out after she kept trying to remove them. Then she
sleepwalks and continues to remove the blood out of her hands and begins to talk in her sleep.
This insanity was cause by the guilt she felt by having planned the death of King Duncan.
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In a secondpoint of comparison between this to women are their personalities. Lady
Macbeth is a frightening, planning, evil and pushy. She is the one to plan the assassination of
King Duncan. This demonstrates that she is planning and ambitious. Lady Macbeth is even more
ruthless than Macbeth, because she was the one that push Macbeth when he wants to back down.

She forces Macbeth to go on and even when he is going insane she tells him not to stop. Even
Macbeth describes her as a masculine soul inhabiting a female body. She is very manipulative
with her husband (Macbeth),when he hesitates to murder; she questions his manhood until he
feels that he must commit murder to prove himself. Also she has a great strength until through all
the murder, until one point when she began to lose it.
Jocasta demonstrates love and protection. She loves Oedipus romantically, but like a
parent, she wishes to protect Oedipuss innocence from knowledge of their relationships as
lovers. Also Jocasta is not as planning as Lady Macbeth. Trying to avoided the prophecy that her
son will kill his father (her husband) and wed her, she decide to give the baby to a messenger, so
he can get rid of him. This baby was abandoned in the woods, find by another messenger and
given to another family, where he escapes and ended turning true the prophecy. We can see that
her plan to kill the baby didnt turn out good. Also Jocasta is not as pushy and bully to Oedipus;
she is more patient when she was Oedipus to tell her what he knows. We can see that these
women have very different personalities.
Another difference in this women is that Jocasta is a mother and Lady Macbeth not.
Jocasta has two boys, two girls and Oedipus. For Oedipus she is her mother and wife, for the
others she is their mother and grandmother. Oedipus is the only one from her marriage with
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Lauis. We can assume that they didnt decide to have another child because of the prophecy.
Then she has children with Oedipus, because there was no longer the fear that the prophecy was
no longer existed.

Lady Macbeth has no children. It can be assumed that this is because their marriage is
recent. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's inability to have children affects their relationship. Macbeth
blames Lady Macbeth for not producing children. Also the witches predict that Macbeth will be
king, but they then predict that Banquo's children will be king.
These two women have many aspects that differ and some that are slightly similar. They
both possess unique and really different personalities. Some aspect that they have in common is
that they both committed suicide. In both of the plays they were portrayed differently. They both
play a major role in the tragedies.