Great Books Ep 82. Euripides - The Trojan Women. Who to Blame after a Major Catastrophe?
Great Books Ep 82. Euripides - The Trojan Women. Who to Blame after a Major Catastrophe?
In the aftermath of a crisis, people always try to look for a scapegoat, a person to blame for all the troubles, even though the real cause may be a complex web of lies that's difficult to unravel.
“For all that followed I must question my own heart, not thee; what frantic thought led me to follow the stranger from thy house, traitress to my country and my home? Punish the goddess, show thyself more mighty e'en than Zeus..”
~ ‘The Trojan Women’ by Euripides (Edward P. Coleridge translation. GB5 - p. 278)
Brief Summary
The play is set in the immediate aftermath of the Trojan War. The women of Troy are waiting to hear what would become of them, most expecting to be slaves in the homes of Greek warriors. The play starts with a dialogue between Poseidon and Athena. Poseidon laments the destruction of Troy, a city that he loved. Athena wants to punish the Greeks for desecrating the temples in Troy and asks Poseidon to create dangerous conditions in the sea when the Greeks go back.
The scene then shifts to Hecuba, who is crying and lamenting about her sad fate. Talthybius, the Greek herald, comes in, and Hecuba asks about what would happen to them. She names women in her family one by one, and Talthybius tells her what happens to them. Her daughter Cassandra is to be taken by Agamemnon, not as a slave but as his concubine. She is shocked to hear this since Cassandra was dedicated to Apollo as a virgin priestess. Her daughter-in-law, Andromache (Hector’s wife) is given to Neoptolemus (Achilles’ son). Her daughter Polyxena has been sacrificed at Achilles' tomb (Talthybius mentions this cryptically and it becomes clear later). She herself will be a slave to Odysseus.
Cassandra comes in, in a frenzied state, carrying a torch and singing a twisted wedding hymn. She invokes Hymen (god of marriage), Hecate, and Apollo and calls for her mother to join in the celebration. Cassandra predicts a lot of future events that are about to unfold. She talks about Agamemnon being killed, Odysseus spending another ten years in the sea, etc.
Andromache comes in and tells Hecuba about Polyxena's death, sacrificed at Achilles' tomb. She is very sad to be going with the Greeks and prefers death. But Hecuba says that she must accept her fate for the sake of her child. Talthybius enters and reveals, to everyone’s horror, that the Greeks have decided to kill Andromache's son, Astyanax since they are afraid of what the child might do in the future. Hecuba and the Chorus continue to lament their fate.
Menelaus enters and says he intends to take Helen back to Greece and execute her there. He says he came to Troy not for Helen, as other people think, but to punish Paris for violating the laws of hospitality. His guard drags Helen by her hair. Helen pleads her case when she sees Menelaus. She blames Hecuba for giving birth to Paris and not killing him as a child. Paris chose Aphrodite, the goddess of love when there was a contest between three goddesses, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. She says the gods are to blame, and she is just a pawn. She tried to escape many times and couldn’t. Hecuba refutes everything that Helen says and asks Menelaus to execute her right away.
Talthybius returns with the body of Astyanax and Hector's shield. He asks Hecuba to bury him since Andromache has already been taken away by Neoptolemus since he heard some news about his grandfather Peleus. Hecuba is distraught and talks about the sad fate that the gods have given to Troy. The play ends with Troy in flames and the women being led away to the Greek ships.
My Thoughts
The play explores themes of grief, loss, and the brutality of war, especially on the people on the losing side who are left behind. They face defeat twice, the second time being the mental anguish of xcthinking whether they might have been better off dead. The play fills in a lot of details about the past, present and future - it gives details about the Trojan war, how the Greeks entered the walls of Troy through the wooden horse, it talks about how the women were distributed and what happened to the children, it talks about what will happen in the future through Cassandra’s prophesy.
The most interesting part for me was the debate between Helen and Hecuba, which showed how responsibility for the war is often disputed. Everyone may have their own narrative of what happened and why it happened. Hecuba blames Helen throughout the play in many instances. Menelaus says that he didn’t come for Helen like what people say, but to right the wrong of Paris having violated the rules of hospitality. He tells publicly that he is going to execute Helen, but from The Odyssey, we know that Helen lives as the queen in Sparta when Telemachus visits them. So probably he was swayed by Helen’s beauty and words.
In complex situations, especially when a major catastrophe has occurred, truth is subjective. Helen’s arguments are emotional and personal, and she places the blame elsewhere other than herself. Hecuba’s arguments seem logical and counter every claim that Helen makes. When Helen says Hera promised Paris that she would make him the king of all of Greece, Hecuba says that Trojans ruling over Greeks is preposterous, Hera would not have said that.
Also, one incident may not be a reason for a war, there might have already been simmering anger or conflict. There was a passage that talked about Heracles & Telamon defeating Trojans in the past. So it seems that there was already rivalry with the Trojans and the abduction of Helen (or Helen running away) might have just been a cause for the attack.
Coming back to assigning blame, I was thinking of the major cyberattacks that have happened in recent years. In many cases, the CEO, the CISO of the company or someone visible gets blamed. It is natural to want to point to someone when things go wrong - immigrants, executives, the government, the military, and so on. In fact, different people may blame different groups, ending up like a Mexican standoff where everyone is pointing at everyone else. I’m reminded of this quote from Factfulness -
In fact, resist blaming any one individual or group of individuals for anything. Because the problem is that when we identify the bad guy, we are done thinking. And it’s almost always more complicated than that. It’s almost always about multiple interacting causes—a system. If you really want to change the world, you have to understand how it actually works and forget about punching anyone in the face.
~ Hans Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
So people who are wise already know that being quick to blame does not help anyone; they know that ‘blameless post-mortem’ of an incident is more fruitful than finger-pointing. Then why does the world seem so divisive, and everyone seems to be blaming everyone else, in every country. One could blame the politicians or people with the oratorial skills to persuade multitudes for supporting xenophobia, islamophobia, antisemitism, transphobia, racism, etc. But I’d argue that politicians have always done this. I think the major factor in increased divisiveness in today’s world is the interconnectedness of the world. Misinformation travels faster than information. One would have thought that the world being more connected means more people get educated and get a better world-view faster, but superstitions and misinformation have travelled faster. But there is always the hope that things will get better with time.
Claude (AI Chatbot) Response
Expanding on your thoughts about scapegoating after a crisis:
Your observation about the tendency to seek scapegoats after a crisis is astute and aligns with psychological and sociological research. This behavior stems from several human tendencies:
Simplification of complex issues: Blaming an individual or group provides a simple narrative for complex problems.
Psychological comfort: Having a clear target for blame can provide a sense of control and understanding in chaotic situations.
Deflection of responsibility: Scapegoating allows others to avoid examining their own role in the crisis.
Cultural and historical patterns: Many societies have traditions of sacrificial scapegoats to purge communal guilt or misfortune.
In modern contexts, like cyberattacks, this tendency manifests in blaming visible figures (CEOs, CISOs) rather than addressing systemic issues. This parallels Helen’s role as a scapegoat for the Trojan War, oversimplifying a complex geopolitical conflict.
The persistence of blame culture, despite knowledge of its ineffectiveness, can be attributed to:
Media dynamics that favor simple, conflict-driven narratives
Political expediency in deflecting responsibility
Cognitive biases like the fundamental attribution error
Lack of widespread education in systems thinking
Deeper analysis of themes and symbolism:
Themes:
The futility of war and its devastating impact on civilians
The cyclical nature of violence and revenge
The role of fate and divine intervention in human affairs
The subjective nature of truth and justice
The resilience of the human spirit in the face of tragedy
Symbolism:
Troy: Represents civilization and order, its fall symbolizing the collapse of an entire world
Astyanax: Symbolizes innocence and future generations, his death representing the complete destruction of Troy’s legacy
Helen: Symbolizes beauty and desire as both creative and destructive forces
The Greek ships: Represent the uncertain future and the journey into exile
Lessons for today’s world:
The importance of considering long-term consequences in conflict resolution
The need for empathy and understanding of different perspectives in complex situations
The danger of dehumanizing the “other” in conflicts
The value of resilience and maintaining dignity in the face of adversity
The importance of preserving cultural heritage and memory in times of conflict
Thought-provoking questions for modern readers:
How does the play’s portrayal of war’s impact on civilians relate to modern conflicts?
In what ways do the arguments between Helen and Hecuba mirror contemporary debates about responsibility and blame in international conflicts?
How does the play’s exploration of truth and perspective relate to current issues of “fake news” and competing narratives in media?
How does Cassandra’s character, with her unheeded prophecies, relate to modern whistleblowers or climate scientists?
In what ways does the play challenge or support the concept of “just war”?