This paper presents a thematological comparison to the portrayal of powerful woman characters in Euripides’ Medea (431 B.C.E./1963), William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1623/2003), and Özen Yula’s Unoffical Roxelana (2017). 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, the selected works featuring these characters share the common themes like 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 in the light of feminist criticism.

Thematology, feminism, dominant females, patriarchy.