Hope and Dread

The only hope that the women of Troy have is the hope for death. To what extent is this
true?

TOPIC SENTENCES
1. The women of troy are filled with dread, knowing their fates of slavery, rape,
death and misery. Euripides illustrates that through describing the captive
trojan women, dreading their future.
2. It is evident that the trojan women have lost their husbands, children and their
country, therefore they have nothing to look forward to in the future.
3. Astyanax, the symbol of hope and the only possible future of the troy is dead
thus, there is no possible way to rebuild Troy and that has caused the women
to look forward to their death since it is pointless to live a miserable life as a
slave.

Women in the ancient Greek had few rights compared to men. Unable to vote, ow land or
inherit, a woman’s place was in the home and her purpose in life was the rearing of
children. By constructing a play in which women are able to dominate the stage and exude
their genuine despair in response to their impending enslavement, Euripides shifts the
perspectives from epic tales of Greek and Trojan male heroes to the conversely affected
women who suffered at the hands of the heroes while simultaneously providing both the
contemporary and modern audience with a unique insight into the true cost of wars. Based
on Euripides’ depiction of the aftermaths of war, it is apparent that these women’s families
including their husbands and children are either brutally murdered or held captive.
Therefore, their only sources of hope are taken away from them, what used to give them
the purpose to live. Hence the only hope that the women of Troy have is the hope for death.

Euripides’ attempt to focus on women rather than men in the tragic play, ‘The women of
troy’, familiarises the audience, which is mainly consisted of men, with the brutality women
had to go through, one of the key ones being that they had to be the slaves of Greek men
and to face a future filled with dread, rape and misery. Therefore, their only hope was
nothing but death. After the fall of Troy, they are disturbingly forced into sex slavery, a form
of slavery based on power as much as it is based on sexual desire. This is shown through
Hecuba’s words when she exclaims ‘I am gone, doomed, undone’ expressing emotions
experienced by most trojan women as well. Them being slaved, takes away any power they
had before. Even though Hecuba encourages the trojan women to rebel against oppression,
at this point there isn’t much that could be done. On that account, the only solution to their
misery and pain is death which is going to set them free. Euripides once again unfolds what
comes with being a woman in ancient Greece, especially after something as crucial as war
takes place and causes endless amounts of death, destruction and despair.

One of the many overpowering topics in Euripides’ ‘The women of troy’ is loss. Many
women have lost their loved ones, their family, their hope. Therefore, that has led them to
question even the most basic fundamentals they used to believe in. "There is no end to my
sickness, no term. One disaster comes to vie with another. "Hecuba, the Queen of Troy on
the precipice of becoming a slave of Athens, is by this point in the play situated as one of the
most tragic and worn-down figures in Greek drama. She bemoans the hatred expressed
toward Troy while questioning the will of God: she has lost her husband, her children, her
throne and, indeed, her entire civilization and its history. She vacillates between lament and
shoring herself and others up with a modicum of hope even if it might be futile to do so.
Andromache and Hecuba start singing together, alternating phases. “Hecuba: O my
children….Andromache: …once. No longer… “They feel the same kind of pain, as
demonstrated by their matching styles of singing speech. Each has lost her husband, and
each fears the loss of her children. The author once again intents to demonstrate for the
audience what it meant to be a woman back then and what caused the Trojan women to
become so hopeless and miserable.

Astyanax, the symbol of hope and the only possible future of Troy is dead. Thus, there is no
possible way to rebuild troy and that has caused women to lose all their hope since they
have no future to look forward to other than being the slaves of Greek men. Andromache
believes her life is so sad and hopeless after her son’s brutal murder, that it would be better
to be dead. Once again, this underscores the horror of the situation the Trojan women have
found themselves in—stripped of choice, agency, and bodily autonomy. She expresses that
by saying “She is dead, and this was death indeed; and yet to die, as she did was happier
than to live as I live now.’’ Hecuba as a response says that “Death, I am sure, is like never
being born, but death, is better thus by far than to live a life of pain, since the dead, with no
perception of evil, feel no grief“. Euripides is aiming to make the audience aware of the
costs of war and its damage on the play’s female characters as well as their husbands and
children. And by doing so he might have made a change in perspective.