Women of Troy Flashcards
The Cost of War
- war = way of life / obsession for Ancient Greece + character in play
- war -> opportunity for success / wealth / fame etc.
- Play focus on bad behaviour of Greeks + suffering of victims (Trojans)
- Play has an anti-war message
Fate, Fortune and the Gods
{Stars}
- Fortune = easily changed and manipulated gods
- Gods are unpredictable + only side with themselves -> only support their wills victory
- Fate = unpredictable like gods + often reversed
- Play concerned with bleakness of war
- Play concerned with they high chance in life and the uncertainty of fate eg. Princess to slave in a day
Duty, Obligations and Integrity
- Hecuba clings to family obligations and civic duty
- Heavy focus on duty to ignore the bad stuff -> duty holds society together and blocks out the bad
- Honour of house and family + hubris
- Loyalty and allegiances
Gender Expectations
- Women=property of their fathers later their husbands
- Eligible of citizenship \
- War=left women deprived of protection as fathers and husbands were killed-> foreign men use women
- enslavement ships women of any power they had in there previous lives
- women who aren’t sexual objects are slaves
- men have strength in spears not in mind
- strict gender roles
- Men= warriors
{Stars}:
Ath. (Prologos): plans ruin the Greeks journey home ‘so that the Greeks will learn their lesson, and in future, respect my temples, and fear the power of the gods’. p9
Pos. : ‘A somewhat cavalier change of mind, surely
- Troy = destroyed with Ath.’s help
- Ath. =goddess of war + wisdom
- Ath. = powerful / capricious -> ruins the Greeks b/c she feels insulted
- Pos. recognises taht Ath = capricious
{COW}
Prologos:
Hec. monody: ‘Look at me now, throned in the dust [..] an old woman, dragged as a slave from my home, all hope plundered from my god-cursed ravaged gray head, with no reprieve from my punishment of everlasting sorrow.’ p10
- Proud noble Queen -> ‘old woman’ w/o hope
- Position on the ground represents the change in fortune / low status
- After war the women = property of Greek men / slaves or concubines
- Hec. too old to be concubine / outlived reproductive function -> trophy of war to degrade her (Odysseus’ slave)
- E invites the Athenian audience the treatment of women / prisoners of war
Cassandra / Episode 1
‘Father and brothers destroyed’.
Gender / CoW / Duty
- Cass has lost everything including family / city / virginity = sacred identity
- Cass want revenge on behalf of her family / city -> martyrs herself
- Fatal marriage to Agamemnon -> his downfall
- All characters think Cass is mad BUT Cass is the only one who can give WoT modicum of solace
Cassandra / Episode 1
Agamemnon will find Cassandra ‘more destructive as a wife than Helen was’.
Gender/CoW P19
-Cass compares marriage to Agamemnon to Helen’s marriages to Menelaus + Paris -> Trojan War = death + destruction
-B/c gift of prophecy, Cass knows Ag’s fate (killed by his wife)
-Cass goes willingly b/c driven by desire for vengeance / revenge for Troy
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Prologos:
Hec to Chorus:
‘Weep, wives of the bronze armoured Trojans, grieve for you hero’s dead, daughters […] husbands lost!’ p10
DIO
- Hec calls on the WoT to lament with her
- Chorus guide the audiences reaction
Cassandra / Episode 1
‘Who could wait for the wind that fills her sails more eagerly then I do?’
‘One of avenging furies’
DIO
- Cass duty to get revenge for war atrocities
- Cass = metaphorical Trojan horse
- Cass pretends to go willingly / exited to new life with Agamemnon -> Ag’s jealous wife murdering him
- Across the play questions signify confusion + helplessness but Cass answers her own question / not helpless victim b/c taking control
Andromache / Episode 2
A: ‘You Greeks’ have ‘dreamed up such cruelties even the barbarians would flinch at’
CoW
P37
- Challenging the Athenian audience b/c it forces them to think about their ideology about war
- Makes them reflect on contemporary issues \
- Challenges Athenian assumptions / arrogance
- Forces Athenian audience to reconsider their ideology about war / duty
- Makes them reflect on contemporary issues
Menelaus / Episode 3
‘This is the most glorious of days when I shall get my hands on that wife of mine […] yes, I am that man , Menelaus’
Gender
-Pronoun ‘mine’ = sees Helen as property / possession
-Helen = 2nd concern / revenge on Paris = #1
-M invested in strict gender binary : men are warriors / women are objects to serve and give pleasure to men
M = fatuous + self-serving
Andromache / Episode 2:
Cradling Astyanax while lamenting “why are you killing this child? What has he done in his innocence? He’s guilty of nothing!”
COW / Gender
- Ast. innocent child -> no harm / threat to Greeks
- Killed b/c Greeks lost mercy / honour
- End of Trojan lineage
- Repetition of Rhet. Q’s show her inability to comprehend the events and the exclamative her fury
- Most explicit violence in play -> appeal to universal human instinct to protect the innocent / children to emphasise that such acts are dishonourable
- Comforting scene -> Ath. audience experience pathos
Menelaus / Episode 3
‘My real motive to get my hands on the man who stole my wife’
Gender / DIO
- Play explores toxic fixed mindset -> both genders suffer
- M worried war -> appear effeminate so he needs to re-establish that he is ‘the man’
- M believes war = ‘masculine’ b/c desire for honour / not ‘feminine’ b/c the need for love. Play explores how rigid belief system based on past -> War Party to make poor choices (Melos / Sicily)
- M = Fatuous + self-serving
- Menelaus = powerful -> his devotion to masculinity becomes toxic -> other Grk men become tool to prove masculinity
- 10 yrs in brutal war for vanity project / needs to protect ego + honour = masculine qualities
- Agamemnon shares same ideas -> ultimately leads to his death / Odysseus
- Men can’t admit to loving a woman -> repress their emotions
- Societal expectations result in a lack of freedom -> thousands of ppl die
- Men use war as a shield to cover emotions
Hecuba / Episode 3
‘With one look she makes men’s eyes her prisoners’
Hecuba accuses Helen of being ‘wet with lust the moment’ she saw Paris.
Hecuba believes that ‘any woman of breeding’ would never be swayed by her emotions or desires.
‘Hair’ + ‘Make up’ + ‘best dress’ / ‘I beg you on my knees.
-H + other WoT cannot understand / accept Helens behavior -> condemns Helen b/c acts of love / lust for Paris
-Women held at a different standard to men
-Bewitching = evil / magic
-Wet = sexual desire
-Breeding = royal blood / bred as a commodity for power alliance
WoT subscribe to same gender binary as Grk men despite -> death / slavery / concubine
Helen uses sexuality to survive b/c only asset patriarchy values. ‘begs’ M to appeal to ego / desire. Kneels before him emph. vulnerability
