Linda & Jocasta: Sisters in Strength and Tragedy

At face value, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman are two very different plays about two very different men with lives that couldn’t possibly be compared in any realm other than the tragic. Even then though, the tragedies that Oedipus and Willy Loman suffer, respectively, could not be more dissimilar; Oedipus is defeated by consequences so unspeakable and atrocious that they are rendered more or less unfathomable, while Willy Loman’s personal ruin is the product of a mindset that consumes a great number of people trying to get on in a capitalist society. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that Oedipus and Willy share something more in common besides a mere susceptibility to misfortune: they are both party to the shamefully underplayed afflictions of their female counterparts, Jocasta and Linda Loman.

In each of these plays, masculinity and the loss thereof is put center stage, so to speak. The audience is subjected to the horrific display of men not being strong, but perhaps even more alarming is the alternative: the understated female strength that, to most, remains darkly tucked beneath the aforementioned, grander male spectacle. Jocasta and Linda, though of two different areas in time and space, serve as the forerunners of a still existing archetype—the mother-wife. While Jocasta is literally the wife and mother of Oedipus, it is safe to say that Linda might as well be the same to Willy, as her clear roles in the family consist of protector, comforter, and optimist.

The fact that both women serve these same familial purposes across the vast space and time that these stories occupy, solidifies these as not just maternal and wifely qualities, but qualities that are wholly female. Interestingly, the ways in which Jocasta and Linda differ are dependent on their individual degrees of masculinity. Both display a certain amount of pride, however, Jocasta’s gets the best of her. At the same time, both suffer from some amount of delusion, a fault that is detrimental primarily to Linda, as she is unable to overcome her delusions in the same way that Jocasta does.

Both of these plays have been consistent subjects of literary and psychosocial analysis. Unfortunately, as is the case with many important works of drama and fiction, the secondary female characters are not considered with the same amount of scrutiny as the leading men. Thanks and no thanks to Freud, Jocasta is a figure who garners a significant amount of reference in modern day literary analyses but still, the Oedipal complex—which is focused on male sexual desire—amasses a lot more attention than the scarcely explored “Jocasta complex.” Amado-Miller goes so far as to suggest that while audiences are “discovering Oedipus,” they are “missing Jocasta,” and therefore losing an entire dimension of drama (80).

The same can be said for Linda Loman. In fact, Arthur Miller himself refers to Death of a Salesman as a “tragedy of the common man,” (Stanton 120). While, of course, this doesn’t have to refer exclusively to members of the male gender—as far as the content of the play and the subsequent analyses dedicated to it are concerned—it more or less does (Stanton 120). Just as Oedipus is the tragic hero of Oedipus, is Willy the tragic hero of Salesman. Even more tragic though, is that the heroines of these stories go unnoticed—Linda especially. It seems that women have to fight for their rightful place within fictional dramas, right along with the right to vote and equal wages. Willy Loman can commit suicide at the end of the play, having succumbed to his countless failures, and he is still the sole hero of his story. Linda is a true heroine, following in the footsteps of Jocasta’s hidden legacy.

From the moment Jocasta graces the stage of Oedipus, she asserts herself as the mother-wife of her husband-son by urging him to desist the rising quarrel between he and Creon:

JOCASTA. For shame! Why have you raised this foolish squabbling brawl? Are you not ashamed to air your private griefs when the country’s sick? Go in, you, Oedipus, and you, too, Creon, into the house. Don’t magnify your anything troubles. (741-745)

Creon proceeds to more or less tell Jocasta that Oedipus ‘started it.’ Newton points out that Jocasta’s behavior from this very first appearance is often described as both wifely and motherly (35). Of course, there is a lack of writings suggesting how childlike the men are in this scene (a characteristic that they share with the men of Salesman). In any case, this is the first instance in which the audience is able to view Jocasta as protector of Oedipus, and it continues throughout the play—most notably in her attempts to keep the truth of their relationship from him once she discovers it for herself.

Hiding the truth is a prominent form of protection in both plays. In fact, Stanton goes so far as to say that Linda’s continued support of her husband and sons, despite their mounting deficiencies, makes her “the one element holding the façade of the family together” (129). Her blind optimism and endless encouragement throughout the play should make this observation fairly apparent, but while the influence and duality of Jocasta is presented in dialogue upon her entrance, Linda is stymied and pigeonholed even by her creator (Miller). This is made clear from the opening stage directions describing her character:

Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression ofher exceptions to Willy's behavior—she more than loves him, she ad-mires [his]… mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties… (1701)

Only a man would believe that any female (in fiction or reality) admires her husband’s “little cruelties.” Linda is highly misunderstood, even by her own creator (Stanton 129).

The degree to which Sophocles may have misunderstood Jocasta, on the other hand, is unknown. In “Oedipus’ Mother and Wife,” Newton seeks an answer to whether or not Sophocles intended to present Jocasta as the mother-wife figure she now represents, highlighting yet another case of concealed information in the form of their respective prophecies:

In what has perplexed readers ever since antiquity as a glaring illogicality, Oedipus and Jocasta only now for the first time speak of the old oracles which have haunted them…the suppression of such information on the part of [the two] also reveals the nature of their relationship: far from enjoying the state of like-mindedness which is the hallmark of a successful marriage” (41)

The success of Jocasta’s marriage, however, seems to come second to the emotional and physical needs of Oedipus. Despite her own fears and reservations toward the quickly unfolding truth of she and her husband’s blood ties, she plainly states to Oedipus from the very beginning, “I will do nothing except what pleases you” (996). This proclamation marks the shift from motherly protector, to wifely comforter.

Linda, however, experiences no such shifts throughout the duration of Salesman. She could easily be mistaken for Willy’s gentle grandmother were it not stated in the character description that she is, in fact, his wife. Yao, Zhou, & Long even suggest that Linda “victimizes” Willy and her family by choosing to indulge his delusions of grandeur, instead of urging him to snap out of it (35). Willy’s adultery is also credited to Linda’s tendency to offer motherly compassion in the place of wifely understanding, contributing to Willy’s loneliness (35). True, perhaps she does not have the best judgment when it comes to how she should react to her husband’s erratic behavior, but maybe she would not be so compelled to act as a mother to Willy instead of a wife if he acted more as a husband instead of a child.

Yet, despite the burden of being married to Willy Loman, Linda is always the optimist just as Miller set out to make her; or perhaps her optimism is a side effect of being married to Willy. This is conveyed on many occasions throughout the play, but perhaps most painfully in the requiem while Linda is “saying goodbye” to Willy:

LINDA. …Willy, I can’t cry. It seems to me that you’re just on another trip. I keep expecting you… I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear… We’re free and clear. We’re free. We’re free… We’re free… (1769)

She does not express resentment toward Willy, for taking his own life. She does not even say I love you, she does not tell him that she will miss him. Her focus remains, optimistically, on the material dreams that she and Willy shared together—the notion that financial stability equates to freedom. Even though her husband is dead she chooses, even through tears, to acknowledge the bright side that he would most appreciate. This is perhaps the only moment in which Linda truly achieves a synergy of wifely and motherly devotion, suggesting that it was too difficult for her to fully be a wife to Willy while he was still living. This shows that it was not necessarily her choice to be desexualized and boxed up as nothing more than a maternal figure; however, she didn’t act as if that bothered her anyway.

Ironically, Oedipus behaves as more of a husband to Jocasta than Willy did to Linda—as stated before, Willy and Linda could easily be mistaken out of context for mother and son. When considered under these circumstances, it only makes sense that Jocasta also behaves as more of a wife to Oedipus than Linda does to Willy. It has been pointed out though, that Jocasta acts predominantly as a mother figure to Oedipus when she believes that he is only bonded to her through matrimony, and that she begins to behave more as a wife after she learns that he is in fact her son (Newton 40). While this isn’t necessarily what some would call optimism on Jocasta’s part, it is a struggle similar to Linda Loman’s—to act appropriately in accordance with the ideal as opposed to the realistic as a way of placating the male figure. When Jocasta thinks that Oedipus is her husband and nothing more, it seems appropriate to treat him with the standard feminine mix of wifely obedience and motherly discretion. When she learns that Oedipus is her son, she immediately tries to deny the situation by eliminating her maternal instincts and “respond[ing] with wifely protectiveness” (Newton 40).

However, while Linda’s optimism and Jocasta’s reflexes are their feminine strengths, they are also their masculine downfalls. Jocasta exhibits a degree of pride that proves detrimental, as she cannot go on with her life knowing the truth about her relationship to Oedipus. It is pride comparable to that of Willy Loman’s—both he and Jocasta are so preoccupied with what could have been, that they are unable to proceed with what is. Jocasta cannot be blamed for the despair she feels upon hearing this news, of course she is devastated, but the choice she makes to end her life seems almost out of character.

Linda, on the other hand, is not too proud to cheer on her dysfunctional, androcentric family, even though she knows very well that they are not all they build themselves up to be. Similarly, she wants to be proud of her family, whether they achieve their ambitions or not—and so she just is. But what begins innocently a pride can often turn into harmful delusion, as is perhaps the case for Linda Loman, though it is never explicitly confirmed. It has been suggested that Linda’s “refusal to challenge Willy’s illusions” has a direct influence on Willy’s decision to commit suicide (Yao, Zhou & Long 35). In that way, her blind encouragement is both to her husband’s detriment, and her own.

Both Oedipus the King and Death of a Salesman are centered on prophecy. Oedipus in the direct sense, as it deals with the power of oracles and the foolishness of man in comparison, and Salesman in a more abstract way—focusing on the American Dream as a prophecy for those who never give up. Much to the misfortune of Willy Loman, Salesman is just as successful in commenting on the foolishness of man as Oedipus is. But again it must be stressed: the foolishness of man. Jocasta and Linda do not act out of foolishness. They are women on a mission to protect the men in their lives, as they so desperately need protecting. The maternal instincts awakened in these women, are triggered of course by something natural that lies within all women, but also by hopelessness of their spouses. It is not entirely clear what the creators of these two female figures intended to relate via their struggles, but it does raise the question: is the mother-wife instinct really a matter of nature, or is this part of feminine evolution in the face of male misery? One thing is certain, a woman must be tough as nails to endure having a husband like Willy Loman, or a son like Oedipus.

Works Cited

Amado-Miller, Moira . "Refiguring Jocasta's Desire." New Antigone 1 (2005): 78-89. Print.

DiYanni, Robert. "Death of a Salesman ." Literature: reading fiction, poetry, drama, and the essay. 5th ed. Taipei: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 1699-1770. Print.

Grene, David, and Richmond Alexander Lattimore, eds. The Complete Greek Tragedies: Sophocles. Vol. 2. University of Chicago Press, 1992.Newton, Rick M.

Newton, Rick M. "Oedipus' Wife and Mother." The Classical Journal 87.1 (1991): 35-45.

Stanton, Kay. "Women and the American Dream of Death of a Salesman." Death Of A Salesman (2007): 156.

Yao, Xiaojuan, Tiannan Zhou, and Yufei Long. "Confined Spirits’ Struggle: Housewife-mother Figures in Arthur Miller’s Early Plays." English Language and Literature Studies 2.3 (2012): p31.