The idea of sex and death, both in early times and today, is a controversial idea. In the novels of tragedy, written in previous times, both sex and death are reflected in the texts as a conflict. But what exactly does sex and death represent? Many directly think that it only represents pleasure, but it is not just that; sex represents much more than that, it represents submission, conformity, control; while death represents the end of being, not only the physical being, but also the soul, the moral, the loss of sanity, etc. The loss is a form of death. In Oedipus Rex there are no sex scenes per se; although, in A Streetcar named Desire there is, but thanks to this action the characters and the course of the texts are affected.
In Oedipus Rex, the most obvious reference to sex is the fact that Oedipus slept with his mother / wife Jocasta. As it narrates the text and it is quite remarkable that in the times of Sophocles, in ancient Greece, man was the dominant sex and the woman was seen as weak, submissive sex. Along these lines, after work and masculine battles, Oedipus arrives 'home' and gets his prize, Jocasta. In this way, in the wake of having his prize, he has satisfied his obligations of virility and progresses toward becoming a dad to four kids. Oedipus, to put it plainly, utilizes sex as the fundamental goal, that, at that point, it prompts his fall. On the off chance that there were not given want for mastery and want to make life a chance to achieve, at that point history would not have a contention.
In the case of A Streetcar Named Desire, sex takes more control in the narrative. There are many more representations of sex as are the many adventures that Blanche had, in which she expresses the need for passion and a great desire to feel young, so her targets were younger men than her in order to satisfy that desire and evade fear of becoming old; like Jocasta, sex is used in the context of evading the loneliness of a dead lover, as an escape from reality. The sexual desires of Stanley, where it is quite obvious that his sexual desire is high, which, like Oedipus, the male sex is represented as the dominant sex. The scene of rape, which is the clearest and self-explanatory narrative, as far as the subject of sex is concerned. Returning to Greece, in Oedipus there are several representations of death.
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The first two are deaths as such, the death of Laius, which occurs in the first loss of the text, when Oedipus, blinded by his fury, murders him. At first, this death at first sight seems insignificant but ends up being its biggest burden. The death of Jocasta resulted in suicide, which, happened while Oedipus was murdering Laius. That was the punishment to herself when she realized that she had committed a sin, by not feeling a pure body. The third death is not literal, but losing oneself is considered the death of being. After the death of Jocasta is when Oedipus loses himself, when he feels 'dead'. It shows that after his actions, the one he used to be does not exist anymore. He lost his innocence, his power, his confidence, his courage, but he mainly lost his pride.
As moving along with death in A Streetcar Named Desire, it is represented in three situations: the first in the death of Blanche's husband, his first love and to whom I dedicate his life to marry him. With time, she realizes that the love of her life is homosexual and she completely rejects that philosophy, for which he commits suicide and that pursues her, as a bad memory. The love of his life commits suicide and his eagerness to feel love dies together with him, her ability to love other men. It is worth mentioning that this death ends a cycle but marks the beginning of her whole life of torture. Blanche, influenced by so much mourning, leads her to the death of her sanity.
Since the death of her husband, she is not the same, her sanity has been dying little by little. With the progress of the story, we can see certain markers that show what has already been mentioned, how her mentally state is dying. The death of her sanity is marked in history when Stanley rapes her, that narrative event is the final marker of the death of her sanity. Madness takes control over Blanche after that. Sex and death today are common ideas, which, as in the texts can lead to situations as they occur both in Oedipus and in A Streetcar Named Desire . Both issues involve much more than we can see in the foreground. Perspectives of a situation can lead to noticing representations that can be seen at a glance, it is only a matter of analyzing between the text and the reality.
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