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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

slave women, Euripides, power, identity

College

Humanities

Department

Comparative Arts and Letters

Abstract

Euripides’ plays continue to be very popular today because of their powerfully human themes. Because of their strong, emotional impact, however, many critics disagree on how to interpret Euripides’ views on women. Since so much knowledge about Greek society in general and women in particular has been lost, classical literature, such as poetry and plays, though difficult to interpret, are important sources of knowledge about the lives and attitudes of the ancient Greeks, especially in regards to the politically disenfranchised groups of women and slaves who feature insignificantly in political writings. Unlike Aeschylus and Sophocles, the other great Greek tragedians, Euripides used slave women as the main characters in several plays: Andromache, Hecuba, and Trojan Women. In addition, his play Medea depicts a woman whose social status is threatened to the point that her husband could effectively reduce her to the status of a slave by her new marriage. Taken collectively, this collection of plays driven by feminine issues, strong female heroines and villains, and the element of social status and its relationship to marriage seemed too strong to be a coincidence.

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