Within the two plays there are three female characters, all of which play an important and powerful role throughout the drama. Linda and Iocasta appear to have similar roles in the plays, leaving the Woman to serve a different function. Together Linda and Iocasta reveal the protagonist of the play and show their husbands humanity which inevitably increases the tragic effect of the drama. The roles of these women are made more powerful by the playwrights, as they individually endure their own tragedy, causing the play to have the effect of a double tragedy. The Woman in Death of a Salesman is a catalyst for Willy's downfall and instead of revealing the protagonists downfall and having her own like Iocasta and Linda she is in fact a cause of the tragedy. Without the women in the plays the action would not be so dramatic and the tragic effect not so intense.