The Women of Troy Flashcards

Question

Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity) The objectification of women Explanation: Women are objectified and stolen by soldiers.

Answer 1

“we are loot… soldier’s plunder” (31)- Andromache Stage directions: “wheeled in on top of baggage wagon loaded with spoils” (28) (Andromache&Astyanax) “like loot they are stealing us” (59)- Hecuba

Answer 2

“exiled from Troy, dehumanized, reduced to the thing.” (50)- Chorus

Answer 3

“Our land is under the whip” (50)- Chorus “under the Troy-sacker’s heel” (13)- Chorus

Answer 4

“she belongs to Odysseus now” (58)- Talthybius

Answer 5

“we… rule nothing now” (9)- Hecuba

Answer 6

“throned in the dust” (10)- Hecuba

Answer 7

“wretched women of Troy, facing a life of slavery” (11)- Chorus

Answer 8

“these feet of mine- so used to deep carpets… they belong to a slave now.” (26)- Hecuba

Answer 9

“let these tears, these torturers, whip me senseless” (26)- Hecuba

Answer 10

“murderous payload” (5)- Poseidon

Answer 11

“ferocious strike force” (5)- Poseidon

Answer 12

“war machine” (5)- Poseidon

Answer 13

“like hunters on the scent” (10)- Hecuba

Answer 14

“whose animal appetite savages all decency” (16)- Hecuba

Answer 15

“a whole generation of women raped in their own bedrooms” (28)- Chorus

Answer 16

“you have dreamed up such cruelties even barbarians would flinch at” (37)- Andromache

Answer 17

“even the sun shines brighter today” (40)- Menelaus

Answer 18

“I am the man, Menelaus” (40)- Menelaus

Answer 19

“Greeks have butchered the lot, and turned his great city into a wilderness” (40)- Menelaus

Answer 20

“their bodies lie forgotten in a foreign country” (20)- Cassandra

Answer 21

“These Greeks, then they began to die and they kept on dying” (20)- Cassandra

Answer 22

“slaves yourselves, doing great men’s dirty work” (22)- Chorus

Answer 23

“the Trojans were cut down in their own homes, in sanctuary” (27)- Chorus

Answer 24

“lift your head up from the dust, heave up from the earth” (9)- Hecuba

Answer 25

“hold it up, the torch, let it flame” (17)- Cassandra

Answer 26

“I fired these torches” (18)- Cassandra

Answer 27

“Agamemnon.. will find me more destructive as a wife than ever Helen was!” (19)- Cassandra

Answer 28

“I’ll kill him, and destroy his whole family in return for my father and brothers destroyed” (19)- Cassandra

Answer 29

“the rich fruit which the tree of my marriage will bear” (19)- Cassandra

Answer 30

“I shall destroy them” (21)- Cassandra

Answer 31

“The living at least have hope. To be dead is nothing.” (32)- Hecuba

Answer 32

“I got down from the cart, cut down the body, covered it with her dress.” (31)- Andromache

Answer 33

“Fluent, but wicked. She’s a dangerous woman.” (41)- Hecuba

Answer 34

“Oh you Greeks… were you so frightened of a child?” (52)- Hecuba

Answer 35

“What cowards you are” (52)- Hecuba

Answer 36

“if the god had not decided to make the greatest suffer most… what nonentities we would all have been!” (56)- Hecuba

Answer 37

“the poets a hundred generations hence have taken us as their great theme” (57)- Hecuba

Answer 38

“to dress his poor body for burial” (54)- Hecuba

Answer 39

“we found these things among the ruins. They’ll do to prepare the body for burial.” (55)- Chorus

Answer 40

“old limbs, strengthen yourselves. Your slavery is beginning.” (60)- Hecuba

Answer 41

“March down to the Achaean fleet!” (61)- Hecuba

Answer 42

“my women, my girls” (11)- Hecuba

Answer 43

“Oh Zeus… unknown, unknowable” (41)- Hecuba

Answer 44

“The gods hate Troy” (40)- Chorus

Answer 45

“O Zeus, our eyes are open now! You have betrayed us to the Greeks” (49)- Chorus

Answer 46

“the force that governs our lives, what else is it but a mad man dancing” (54)- Hecuba

Answer 47

“I built this city- with Apollo I built it” (5)- Poseidon

Answer 48

“there’s no longer anything left worth a god’s consideration” (6)- Poseidon

Answer 49

“I too shall desert famous Troy” (6)- Poseido

Answer 50

“I shall make the Greek’s return home a disaster.” (7)- Athene

Answer 51

“cavalier change of mind” (7)- Poseidon

Answer 52

“Zeus has promised me a savage hail storm” (8)- Athene

Answer 53

“the use of his thunderbolts” (8)- Athene

Answer 54

“floating corpses so thick you could walk on them” (8)- Athene

Answer 55

“oh you gods, what good were you to us? Betrayers!” (24)- Hecuba

Answer 56

“Any sensible man must hate war, he does his best to avoid it.” (21)- Cassandra

Answer 57

“It is a crown of honour to die nobly, with dignity” (21)- Cassandra

Answer 58

“they won the greatest of all glories. They died fighting for their fatherland” (20)- Cassandra

Answer 59

“the earth that covered him was the sacred soil of the land of his fathers” (20)- Cassandra

Answer 60

“this is the shield that protected Hector’s magnificent arm!” (54)- Hecuba

Answer 61

“and for you, great shield, who protected Hector like a mothers, and gave birth to victories beyond number, a garland of flowers. You are not dead, nor will ever be.” (55)- Hecuba

Answer 62

Character flaw leading to downfall. Unlike most Greek tragedies, there is no obvious hamartia leading to the downfall of the female characters. This is what makes the play so poignant. In this way, Euripides disrupts the expectations of his Athenian audience.

Answer 63

Excessive pride

Answer 64

Purification through suffering, intended to teach us of our insignificance. The audience’s alternating feelings of fear and terror provide cleansing... they feel better after the emotional roller-coaster. It is this process of purging which becomes cathartic.

Answer 65

‘God in the machine’. Use to refer to the appearance of the gods on stage (Poseidon and Athene during the prologue). However, it is not a conventional use of this term, for the gods are not arriving to ‘save’ anyone. They merely observe the destruction. It is important to show awareness of this if you to use the term.

Answer 66

The family and its importance in society.

Answer 67

The first scene in the play.

Answer 68

The entrance of the chorus.

Answer 69

A song of lament (eg, Hecuba's)

Answer 70

The action of the play

Answer 71

Sung by the chorus in between the episodes.

Answer 72

The final scene of the play.

Answer 73

Reversal of fortune. Hecuba was once a queen, and becomes a slave.

Answer 74

Reversal of fortune. Hecuba was once a queen, and becomes a slave.