Book Cover
E-book
Author Weiberg, Erika L., author.

Title Demanding witness : women and the trauma of homecoming in Greek tragedy / Erika L. Weiberg
Published New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2024
©2024

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Description 1 online resource (x, 225 pages)
Summary "Demanding Witness investigates how the trauma of female characters is represented and received in four Greek tragedies about homecoming: Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Women of Trachis, and Euripides' Heracles and Helen. Through discussions of modern trauma concepts alongside historical and literary analyses of these plays, Erika L. Weiberg examines how and why female characters' expressions of psychological pain are hotly contested, silenced, and suppressed by other characters and sometimes by the plot of the play itself. Tragic representations of female noncombatants' trauma after war expose the ripple effects of violence that wars create, even for individuals and communities distant from the fighting. At the same time, these characters' expressions of trauma also create a conflict of witnessing for other characters and the audience. By shifting focus to the returning hero's wife and the women he enslaves, Weiberg calls attention to the detrimental effects of structural and chronic forms of trauma in addition to trauma caused by discrete, catastrophic events. Weiberg argues that recognizing women's trauma in these tragedies requires questioning how Greek society was organized through hierarchies that privilege the hero's story of trauma and recovery to the exclusion of other types of stories and experiences"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and indexes
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on February 21, 2024)
Subject Greek drama (Tragedy) -- History and criticism
Women in literature.
Psychic trauma in literature.
War -- Psychological aspects.
Greek drama (Tragedy)
Psychic trauma in literature.
War -- Psychological aspects.
Women in literature.
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Literary criticism.
Literary criticism.
Critiques littéraires.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2023033958
ISBN 9780197747339
0197747337
9780197747346
0197747345
9780197747353
0197747353