«The Trojan Women Euripides' Trojan Women exemplifies the cruelty and painful consequences of war, and how they affect women by leaving them powerless and ...» Document abstract
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Language : english
literature
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11/12/2007
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SummaryEuripides’ Trojan Women exemplifies the cruelty and painful consequences of war, and how they affect women by leaving them powerless and without choices. Several episodes in the play illustrate this loss of choice and power, the death of Astyanax, the sexual slavery of Cassandra and Andromache, and the ultimate irony of Hecuba’s slavery to Odysseus.
The death of Andromache’s son Astyanax is symbolic of the final death of Troy and her brave heroes. Talthybius tells Andromache and the other Trojan women that “A hero’s son could not be allowed to live.” (Euripides, The Trojan Women. page 274) By this Talthybius means that the Greeks will spare no aspect of Troy. It also seems to show some fear on the side of the Greeks, that Astyanax may grow up to carry on Hector’s legacy. “What were you afraid of, that it made you kill this child so savagely? That Troy, which fell, might be raised from the ground once more?”
The death of Andromache’s son Astyanax is symbolic of the final death of Troy and her brave heroes. Talthybius tells Andromache and the other Trojan women that “A hero’s son could not be allowed to live.” (Euripides, The Trojan Women. page 274) By this Talthybius means that the Greeks will spare no aspect of Troy. It also seems to show some fear on the side of the Greeks, that Astyanax may grow up to carry on Hector’s legacy. “What were you afraid of, that it made you kill this child so savagely? That Troy, which fell, might be raised from the ground once more?”
« The most famous of these women is of course, Helen, with "the face that launched a thousand ships," many of which came back empty after the Trojan War. ...» Document abstract
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Language : english
humanities/philosophy
term papers
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24/04/2007
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level : Advanced
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SummaryFew storylines are more familiar than that of the woman so beautiful that men cannot resist her and will stop short of nothing, even murder or treachery, to possess her. The most famous of these women is of course, Helen, with “the face that launched a thousand ships,” many of which came back empty after the Trojan War. Reviled by antiquity for her role in that war which caused the death of so many of Greece’s finest men, Helen was also condemned for her adulterous—and sometimes seen as all-too-willing—relationship with her abductor, Paris. Euripides, however, in his play, Helen, picks up the apologetic version of her tale from Stesichoros’ “Palinode to Helen” and claims that she in fact never went to Troy, but was spirited away to Egypt where she remained chaste and secure. This rendering of her story protects Helen’s metaphorical/mythological status from Paris and a public opinion that would try to reduce her to a physical object. The princess Alatiel, however, in II, 7 of Boccaccio’s Decameron, has no such defense, and despite, or perhaps because of her physical experience of love with nine different men, she fails to become a candidate for metaphor. The death and destruction in these stories is not, then, caused by the incomparable beauty of these two women, but by their struggle to maintain or attain a higher ontological order.
Table of Contents
- The woman so beautiful that men cannot resist her
- Helen begins her story as already secure in the love
- Euripides abruptly changes the story from its expected course
- The rest of the play focuses on removing Helen from the dangers of the naturalist king
- One of the recurring elements in the story is her lack of speech.
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