ABSTRACT
The mother's battle for her child, with sickness, with poverty, with war, with all the forces of exploitation and callousness that cheapen human life, needs to become a common human battle, waged in love and in the passion for survival. This chapter focuses on Euripides' Trojan Women, a play in which mothers suffer incredibly as they confront apparent powerlessness in the face of the erasure of both their past and future. It then highlights the ways in which women were removed from the political life of the city. The chapter shows how women also transgress that construction, doing so in ways that also violate their ascribed responsibility within the familial assemblage, pushing readers to reconsider the bounds of identity, as well as the power of one generation over another. Here, Medea famously challenges the traditional justification for male supremacy over females. Women must endure myriad challenges with little preparation and very little assurance of success.
