The Trojan Women Literary Elements

Drama; Greek tragedy

Ancient Greek; translated into English (this ClassicNote uses the Diskin Clay translation)

Trojan War; Ancient Greece; possibly 12th-11th century BCE

Third-person omniscient

The tone and mood of the play are somber, melancholic, and forlorn.

Protagonists: Hecuba, Chorus, Kassandra, and Andromache. Antogonists: Greeks, Odysseus, and Helen.

What will befall the Trojan women after the loss of their city?

Astyanax is thrown off the walls of Troy, forever ending Troy's ability to bring itself back from the brink of total destruction and also depriving the female characters of any and all hope that they will be redeemed.

1. Kassandra foreshadows the fall of the House of Atreus
2. Odysseus's journey is foreshadowed several times
3. Helen's happy fate is foreshadowed by Hecuba's words regarding Menelaus's susceptibility to her charms

N/A.

1. There are numerous allusions to the works of Homer, both "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey"
2. Apollo granted Kassandra was granted a life of virginity and the gift of prophecy (47)
3. The language praising Mt. Aetna and Sicily mirrors the odes of Pindar (46)
4. Dionysus is also involved with Kassandra's gift
5. There are many allusions to Paris and his life: the prophecy about him, his time growing up among the shepherds, his participation in Priam's game, the goddess's contest, his taking of Helen, etc.
6. Euripides suggests Kassandra is one of the Furies
7. There is a reference to Herakles rescuing Hesione from a sea serpent (74)
8. The story of Zeus falling for Ganymede and how he transformed himself into an eagle so he could snatch the boy and bring him to Heaven (75)
9. Helen's fate of using her charms to secure herself a long and luxurious life is alluded to

See the separate Imagery section of this ClassicNote.

1. "Even so, her fate / was kinder than mine. I must go on living" (66): Andromache says this of Polyxena to Hecuba. It is a paradox because it is a seemingly contradictory statement: how could living be worse than being dead? How could it be one's "fate" to live, and again, why is that worse than death?
2. "Zeus wields power over all the other gods, / but is the slave of this goddess" (80): it is a paradox that the all-powerful kind of gods is a "slave" to Aphrodite.

Euripides parallels the fall of Troy with the imminent destruction of the Greeks as they return home, suggesting that no one is immune to the vagaries of fate.

1. "When a terrible desolation takes a city, / The world of the gods sickens and will not receive its honors" (Poseidon, 37)
2. "I have heard of its fertility, richness, and nodding crops" (Chorus on Thessaly, 45)
3. "I do not even have hope as my companion, / hope, the companion of other mortals"( Andromache, 12)
4. "Black Death has closed his eyes, / sacred Death, in unholy butchery" (Chorus, 96)

1. Greek chorus
2. Greek drama structure: prologue, parodos, strophe, antistrophe, monody, epode
3. Staging directions
4. Monologues (Kassandra, Helen, Hecuba)
5. Dramatic Irony