The Women of Troy Flashcards
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: Negative emotions represent water and they are consuming.
“the gods have drowned me in an ocean of misery” (34)- Andromache
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: Andromache describes her baby.
“my sweet baby, so tender in my arms” (36)- Andromache
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: The lament of wives grieving for their male counterparts.
“wives for their husbands screaming, for their dead sons” (39)- Chorus
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: The women feel numb in their emotions.
“there is no agony we don’t already feel, no abyss of pain to discover” (38)- Chorus
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: Andromache describes the baby’s death.
“my little darling… what a wretched, meaningless death” (53)- Andromache
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: Hecuba describes Astyanax’s hair reduced to nothing.
“these beautiful curls… torn out, shorn to stubble” (53)- Hecuba
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: Hecuba describes Astyanax’s body.
“such a tender corpse” (53)- Hecuba
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation:
“on my rack of pain” (9)- Hecuba
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: Hecuba compares herself to a bird.
“like the mother bird at her plundered nest” (10)- Hecuba
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: Bird’s song has turned into pain.
“my song has become a scream” (10)- Hecuba
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: Describe unbearable pain, comparison to animal.
“what words, what howling, can give tongue to a pain no animal can endure” (13)- Chorus
Theme: The suffering of the victims of war (loss of loved ones)
Explanation: Pain that may make you never recover.
“what I am suffering, and have suffered, what I will suffer yet, is more than enough to make anyone fall and never get up again.” (24)- Hecuba
Theme: Loss of home/culture
Explanation: Troy has been burnt.
“a smoking ruin” (5)- Poseidon
Theme: Loss of home/culture
Explanation: Troy has been burnt 2.
“ruined, smoke blackened stone” (29)- Hecuba
Theme: Loss of home/culture
Explanation: The sanctuaries have been damaged.
“blood smears the sanctuaries” (5)- Poseidon
Theme: Loss of home/culture
Explanation: Troy is maternal.
“Troy, mother of us all!” (30)- Hecuba
Theme: Loss of home/culture
Explanation: Troy is now uninhabitable.
“great city into a wilderness” (40)- Menelaus
Theme: Loss of home/culture
Explanation: Talthybius wants everything to be consumed by the fire.
“burn everything down!” (57)- Talthybius
Theme: Loss of home/culture
Explanation: Troy is sacred and once safe haven.
“my beloved city, my children’s nurse” (59)- Hecuba
Theme: Loss of home/culture
Explanation: Troy will be forgotten.
“soon anonymous earth, like a forgotten song” (60)- Chorus
Theme: Loss of home/culture
Explanation: Troy is dying.
“Everything is dying, even the name: there is no place on earth called Troy” (60)- Chorus
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: The sounds women make.
“screams and moans of captured women” (6)- Poseidon
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Andromache wants to be a desireable wife.
“reputation as the ideal wife” (32)- Andromache
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Made use of as a slave.
“to be yoked as a slave” (33)- Andromache
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Women are objectified and stolen by soldiers.
“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
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Banished from Troy and treated as objects.
“exiled from Troy, dehumanized, reduced to the thing.” (50)- Chorus
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Troy is being hacked.
“Our land is under the whip” (50)- Chorus
“under the Troy-sacker’s heel” (13)- Chorus
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Hecuba belongs to another man now.
“she belongs to Odysseus now” (58)- Talthybius
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: The royals have been stripped of their duties.
“we… rule nothing now” (9)- Hecuba
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Their thrones have been abandoned.
“throned in the dust” (10)- Hecuba
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Women of Troy now face a life of slavery.
“wretched women of Troy, facing a life of slavery” (11)- Chorus
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Hecuba used to be used to a luxury in life.
“these feet of mine- so used to deep carpets… they belong to a slave now.” (26)- Hecuba
Theme: Loss of autonomy (freedom/status/identity)
The objectification of women
Explanation: Numb from pain now, crying
“let these tears, these torturers, whip me senseless” (26)- Hecuba
Theme: The brutality of the Greek soldiers
Explanation: Dangerous payload
“murderous payload” (5)- Poseidon
Theme: The brutality of the Greek soldiers
Explanation: The strength of the Greeks
“ferocious strike force” (5)- Poseidon
Theme: The brutality of the Greek soldiers
Explanation: Description of the Greeks at war
“war machine” (5)- Poseidon
Theme: The brutality of the Greek soldiers
Explanation: Animalstic features of Greeks
“like hunters on the scent” (10)- Hecuba
Theme: The brutality of the Greek soldiers
Explanation: Animalstic features of Greeks 2
“whose animal appetite savages all decency” (16)- Hecuba
Theme: The brutality of the Greek soldiers
Explanation: The women are vulnerable and are misused.
“a whole generation of women raped in their own bedrooms” (28)- Chorus