Women Of Troy

Question 1

Ath (Prologos): plans ruin the Greek’s journey home ‘so that the Greeks will learn their lesson, and in future, respect my temples, and fear the power of the gods’
P: ‘A somewhat cavalier change of mind, surely?’

Answer 1

Troy is destroyed with Ath’s help Ath = goddess of wisdom
Ath = powerful / not wise
ruins the Greeks b/c feels insulted = capricious
Even fellow god recognizes Ath = capricious, fickle nature

Question 2

Poseidon (Prologos):
‘when a man sacks [and] destroys everything […] sacred temples [and] tombs […] he’s asking for trouble. The same destruction sooner or later will fall on his own head.’

Answer 2

cyclical pattern of history→problems in contemporary Athens.
- Sinful + barbaric acts→equally sinful + barbaric retaliation.

Question 3

Prologos
H 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 grey head, with no reprieve from my punishment of everlasting sorrow.’

Answer 3

• proud + noble queen = ‘old woman’ w/o hope.
• Position on ground represents change of
  fortune + new low status
• Hecuba has no role→embarrassed + outraged that former queen now useless b/c outlived any reproductive function / H = trophy of war taken to degrade her (Odysseus’s slave)
• Euripides invites Athenian audience to question treatment of prisoners of war

Question 4

Prologos – H’s monody
Hecuba to Chorus:
‘Weep, wives of the bronze armoured Trojans, grieve for your heroes dead, daughters […] husbands lost!’

Answer 4

• H calls on WoT (Chorus), to lament w/ her in kommos
• H want WoT to pay homage to men before
  their fate becomes clear
• Loss of war → reduced to the most basic
  functions of their gender = sex objects + fertile wombs

Question 5

Prologos – H’s monody
Hecuba to Chorus: ‘Troy is burning.’

Answer 5

• Troy burning = key metaphor / destruction of Troy + destruction of women / Hecuba draws parallels b/t WoT bodies + city.
• →strengthen audience’s sense of destruction and indignity both have been forced to endure
• Troy endures a literal siege + metaphorical rape / WoT metaphorical siege + literal fear of rape

Question 6

Prologos - Chorus join H in kommos:
‘a whole generation of women’ were ‘raped in their bedrooms’.

Answer 6

• Fall of Troy→WoT subject to mass abuse
• w/o fathers / husbands / brothers / sons
protection  vulnerable
• 10 yrs war → Greek men behave w/o humanity
+ this was considered acceptable in Grk society
• Innocent suffer the most
• WoT = spoils of war

Question 7

Cassandra Ep. 1
Agamemnon will find her ‘more destructive as a wife than ever Helen was’.

Answer 7

• Cassandra compares marriage to Aga w/ Helen marriages to Men + Paris → Trojan War → death + destruction
• Cass = driven by a desire for vengeance / views own fate to be slave to Aga’s desire→chance for revenge for Troy / retribution for Aga’s sins.
• Gift of prophecy → Cass know Aga’s choice → his demise + suffering for Greeks (link to Poseidon card)

Question 8

Cassandra Episode 1
‘father and brothers destroyed’.

Answer 8

• Cass has lost everything – fam / city / virginity = sacred identity
• Cass martyrs herself for revenge
• fatal marriage to Aga ➔ his downfall Cass ➔ able enact revenge on behalf of family / city.
• All character think Cass = mad woman BUT…
• Cass = only one who can give WoT modicum of solace

Question 9

Cassandra Ep 1
‘Who could wait for the wind that fills her sails more eagerly than I do?’
‘one of avenging furies’

Answer 9

Cass duty = revenge for the war atrocities
- Cass = metaphorical Trojan horse = pretend go happily / willingly into new life w/ Aga
➔revenge b/c Aga jealous wife kills him
Across play RQs = confusion + helplessness but Cass answers
own RQs
= Cas not helpless victim b/c planning revenge

Question 10

Cassandra – Ep 1:
‘Any sensible man must hate war, he does his best to avoid it’
‘it is no shame for a city, indeed, it is a crown of honour to die nobly, with dignity.’

Answer 10

• Ath. society = long celebrated + mythologised war
• sign of heroism➔status + $
• BUT through Cass, E suggest ppl hasty going to war = ignorant + foolish
• E worried about Athenian soldiers who dies attacking foreign countries like Sparta / Melos, etc. could lose their life for nothing
• Whereas dying defending home = honourable
• Upcoming Expedition to Sicily = more pointless loss of life
• Cycle of violence b/t Athens + Sparta (link to Pos.
  quote)

Question 11

Cassandra – Ep 1:
‘had forgotten what their children looked like’ ‘lie forgotten in a foreign country’
Kleos not achieved

Answer 11

• Through C, E challenges audience➔? honour of war in foreign lands
• Grks were so long away from loved ones @ home ➔forgotten faces whereas Trojans went home to fam each night
• bodies of Grk soldiers failed to get the burial rights their culture demands (link to Ast)
• Emph. contemporary Ath audience needless deaths replicated in Pelopenesian war (mass loss of life in Sparta / Melos + upcoming EofSc).
• Forgotten is repeated = emphasis→worst case b/c Grk war should →reputation / fame

Question 12

Cassandra – Ep 1 To Talthybius
“Officers of your kind are always hated by everyone, lackeys. Slaves yourself, doing great men’s dirty work.”

Answer 12

C attacks T as middle manager
T expresses compassion for Tw but does nothing to help.
T = part of Grk war machine➔facilitates brutal + barbaric decisions of generals

Question 13

Talthybius – Ep 1:
About Cass concubinage to Agamemnon
‘King’s mistress’ / ‘no bad thing”

Answer 13

• dehumanising effect of military service→Tal ignorant of the impact of concubinage on Tw (most would rather die)
• noun ‘mistress’ = euphemism➔masquerade reality that Cass = Aga sex slave
• →forcing Ath aud to consider foreign policy during wars esp. following SofM

Question 14

Ep2 - Andromache: ‘The gods always hated us.’
Chorus in stasimon: prayers to the gods are ‘vain dreaming, false hopes’

Answer 14

• Astyanax murder➔Andromache + Hecuba losing hope
• ➔realisation gods abandoned Troy
• Hecuba + Andromache = loyal servants to gods
• praying = futile / folly
• Reinforced by chorus in the Ep2 stasimon b/c
  realise gods do not care abt woT

Question 15

Ep2 – Andromache claims ‘you Greeks’ have ‘dreamed up such cruelties even the barbarians would flinch at’

Answer 15

• Challenges Athenian assumptions / arrogance
• Forces Athenian audience to reconsider their
  ideology about war / duty
• Makes them reflect on contemporary issues, e.g.
  the atrocities and constant fighting of the Peloponnesian War (SofM & EtoS)

Question 16

Ep 2 - Andromache:
Cradling Astyanax while lamenting “Why are you killing this child? What has he done in his innocence? He’s guilty of nothing!”

Answer 16

• Ast = innocent child→no harm / threat to Grks.
• killed b/c Grks lost mercy + honour
• End of Trojan lineage
• Repetition of RQs 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 emphasize that such acts are dishonorable.
• confronting scene → Ath aud experience pathos

Question 17

Menelaus – Ep 3:
‘this most glorious of days when I shall finally get my hands on that wife of mine […] yes, I am the man, Menelaus’

Answer 17

• Pronoun ‘mine’ = M sees Helen as property / possession
• Helen = 2nd concern / revenge on P = #1
• M = King of Sparta➔invested in strict gender binary: men
are warriors / women are objects to serve and give
pleasure to men
• M = fatuous + self-serving

Question 18

Menelaus – Ep 3:
‘my real motive was to get my hands on the man who stole my wife’

Answer 18

• Play explores toxic fixed mindset➔both genders suffer
• M worried war➔appear effeminate so needs re-
establish he is ‘the man’
• M beleves war = ‘masculine’ b/c desire for honour / not
‘feminine’ b/c need for love. Play explores how rigid belief system based on past ➔ War Party to make poor choices (Melos / Sicily)
• M = fatuous + self-serving

Question 19

Hecuba– Ep 3
‘with one look she makes men’s eyes her prisoners, she sacks whole cities, burns houses to the ground with that bewitching smile’
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’

Answer 19

H + other woT cannot understand / accept Helen’s behaviour➔condemn Helen b/c acts on love / lust for Paris
Women held to dif. standard to men
Bewitching = evil/magic
Wet = sexual desire
Breeding = royal blood / bred as commodity for power alliance
WoT subscribe to same gender binary as Grk men despite➔death / slavery / concubinage
Helen uses sexuality to survive b/c only asset patriarchy values. ‘begs’ M to appeal to his ego/desire. Kneels before him emph. vulnerability.

Question 20

Hecuba– Ep 3
‘Consummate the Greek victory […] Wives who betray their husbands deserve death.’
Andromache – Ep 2
Helen should ‘die in agony’
Chorus – Ep 3
‘punish your wife in a way worthy of the traditions of your family.’’

Answer 20

WoT united blame 4 Helen➔implore M to kill Helen in retribution.
Hec verb ‘consummate’ = refer to sexual penetration after wedding / H suggests victory for M is to regain ownership of Helen + destroy her
Last hope for WoT is for Helen to suffer + die b/c vindication of values lived their lives by
E uses Chorus to question values of Grk / Athenian republic b/c brutalisation of women = ‘tradition’ / ‘noble’ behaviour

Question 21

Helen – Ep 3
Helen wants to ‘speak in [her] own defence’:
• blames Hecuba ‘giving birth to Paris’
• She was ‘exported , sold off abroad’ as a ‘saleable
asset’
• Victim of ‘the destructive power of love’
• ‘I was raped, not married’
• Marriage to P was ‘blessing’ to Greece b/c it
prevented Athene from helping Paris invade
Greece.
• Attempted to ‘escape to the Greek ships’

Answer 21

• Helen uses sophism to explain / justify actions & attempts to rebut accusations
• Claims to be victim of gods (Aphrodite) who bewitched her & ‘sold’ her to Paris
• Helen is concubine to Paris like Cass. is Aga.
• ‘blessed’ Greece by stopping Athene from
support an Asian invasion of Greece
• Claimed to Menelaus she tried to escape in
attempt to reconcile w/ Menelaus
• E shows Helen using logic + sexuality to try to
survive / H tries to cast herself as hero similar to how audience see Cassandra but she only serves herself
• In patriarchal society survival = best woman can hope for

Question 22

Talthybius:
‘I ask you not to hate me.’
‘with the greatest reluctance’
‘joint decision of the council of the Greeks’ ‘they have decided…’
‘I’m not half hard enough’

Answer 22

• Tal = concerned about H and And respect for him ↓
• Makes it clear it is the joint decision of the council – no individual is taking individual responsibility
• group decisions made by the council➔ dishonourable choices b/c no-one has accountability
• Pronoun ‘they’ = faceless bureaucrats➔ soldiers carry inhumane acts
• = Tal wants Tw know he is not responsible to assuage his guit
• Tal feels guilty but powerless to stop war→Ath aud ? decision-making of War Party within Eccesia

Question 23

Hec – Exodus
Attempts to ‘die in [the] embrace’ of the burning city ➔runs into flames / attempts suicide for release from pain

Answer 23

Hecuba = manifestation of Troy
Destruction of city + loss of fam + enslavement + Ast
death + fear of Helen release→Hec despair
Hecuba experiences anagnorisis b/c realises commitment to the structures of her old life (patriarchy / Hellenic values / gods) have led her to this point
Grk generals should recognize crimes but it is woT who realise commitment to Trojan way of life→ perpetuating cycles of history
E denies aud catharsis→leave theatre feeling frustrated / sad / angry

Question 24

Catharsis = getting rid of unhappy memories or strong emotions such as anger or sadness by expressing them in some way.
Anagnorisis = moment main character realizes their wrong-doing / learn a moral lesson that makes them a better person.
“March down to the Aechaen fleet!”

Answer 24

• E’s contemporary Ath aud + modern aud DON’T experience catharsis b/c @ play end woT are slaves but Grk men are not punished for crimes
• No Grk men experiences anagnorisis b/c they get away w/ their war crimes + dishonor / play ends w/ woT being loaded on ship
• @ play’s end Ath aud see war ships prep. in harbour for EtoS

Question 25

Exodus
Hecuba’s last lines:
“Into the abyss. My legs are trembling , but I won’t fall.”

Answer 25

• Anagnorisis→H accepts her fate
→ Resolves to lead T.W. into new life as ‘slavery is beginning’
• Stoic / quiet leadership = manifestation of Hellenic ideals
• Foil for Menelaus (= fatuous / self-serving leader)