Women in Times of Violence

A Reading of Euripides’ The Women of Troy

Abstract

Greek dramatist Euripides’ prize-winning play The Women of Troy, written at the time of the brutal Peloponnesian war when Athens was involved in an imperialist war against her sister-states, is set during an earlier war: The Greco-Trojan war, considered one of the most glorious chapters in Greek history and immortalized by Homer in the epic Iliad. The paper, however, discusses how Euripides subverts the idea of a glorious war and through the plight of the Trojan women brings to the surface the sufferings that women undergo during times of violence when their bodies become territories for men to wage war upon and conquer. Through the characters of Hecabe, Andromache, Cassandra and others, Euripides critiques the idea of valor and glory as embodied in the Greek generals and shows that bravery can easily slip into brutality.