hecuba

Question 1

prologos
Hecuba calls on chorus to join her in kommos

“weep, wives of the bronze armoured Trojans, grieve for your heroes, dead, daughters […] husbands lost!”

Answer 1

• H calls on WOT to lament w\ her in kommos
• H want WOT to play hommage to men before their fate becomes clear
• loss of war -> reduced to most basic functions of their gender = sex objects + fertile wombs

Question 2

prologos
Hecuba to chorus

” troy is burning”

Answer 2

• troy burning = key mataphor = destruction of Troy + of women
• Hecuba draws parallels btwn WOT bodies AND CITY
• Strengthen and sense of destruction + indignity both have been forced to endure; troy endures a literal siege + metaphorical rape / WOT = metaphorical siege + literal fear of rape

Question 3

Hecuba
“ this child was murdered by the Greeks be cause they were afraid of him!” they should be “ashamed […[ of such an epitaph!”

Answer 3

• H prepares Ast’s body
• confronting scene to audience
• tragedy
• symbol conflict in Gr = unresolved and still take place in contemporary Athens
• E criticizes fixed view of masculinity because harmful to them and means peace is unlikely
• E challenges Ath Aud loyalty to trad patriarchal structure bc strict gender roles = reductive eg greek soldiers killed Ast bc view him as soldier and not a child

Question 4

attempts to “die in [the] embrace” of the burning city –> runs into flamed/attempts suicide for release from pain

Answer 4

• Hec = manifestation of Troy
• destruction of city + loss of fam +enslavement + fear of Helen release + Ast death = Hecubas despair
• E denies catharsis
• WOT realise commitment to Trojan way of life -> perpetuating cycles of history

Question 5

Hecuba about Helen “with one look she makes mens eyes her prisoner” “burns houses to the ground with that bewitching smile” and H accuses Helen of being “wet with lust” the moment she saw Paris

Answer 5

• H and WPT don’t understand or accept Helen’s beh. -> condemn Helen as acts on love and lust for Paris
• women held to diff. standard than men
• bewitching = evil
  wet = sexual desire
• wot subscribe to same gender binary