Women of Troy Essay

The Trojan Women To the ancient Greeks the Siege of Troy was the greatest and most important event in the Age of Heroes; that age of wonder when the Immortals who dwelt on Olympus and whom they worshipped as gods, mingled with mankind and took a visible part in their affairs. The end of Troy marks the place where legend ends and history begins (Green, 11). The line between fantasy and reality is sometimes difficult to grasp, leaving historians questionable of the actualities of the battle of Troy, better yet the women. This is where Euripides explores the devastating features of the post-war landscape in The Women of Troy (Meltzer, 234). His strong pacifist and feminist opinions are highlighted repeatedly throughout the UTSC production through the environment of extreme cruelty and torment after war; an environment without a gleam of hope, especially for women. Such Greek tragedies were usually based on the concepts outlined in The Poetics of Aristotle, a document in which Aristotle describes the guidelines for writing plays. One of the necessities that Aristotle describes in order to have a good tragedy is the presence of catharsis, the relief of emotions by a piece of art (Else, 14). Euripides along with the UTSC production conveys the post-war surroundings of extreme suffering and torment as well as depictions of the gods, mainly through Hecabe, the widow of the Troy’s King Priam and the only living symbol of Troy (Green, 55). Euripides based the play on the myths and legends about the Trojan War, familiarly in reference to Homer’s Iliad (Fagles, 3). In fact Archeological and historical evidence suggests that the war actually took place, probably between 1350 and 1100 BC. However, ancient storytellers mythologized the events before, during, and after the war, suggesting gods and goddesses took sides and even interfered in battles to affect the outcome of the war and the fates of heroes

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