Book Review - 'The Women of Troy' by Euripides, Don Taylor (Translator)

I've studied, reconstructed, and deconstructed 'The Women of Troy' to death at school for my drama course. It's one of the few reading materials at that time and place in my life that I actually liked. I've visualised the setting, took apart its themes, and imagined feeling the devastating emotions of the characters. I also saw it on stage in London with my class, which helps me to understand it better.

'The Women of Troy' is not a happy play. It is a Greek Tragedy to the core. And I love it.

We all know about war and its terrible consequences and revealings of the truths of human nature. But what of hearing about it from women's perspectives? The ones who are deeply affected by it? What about perceiving it from the POV of the wives and daughters of the men who had fought and died in vain?

That is what 'The Women of Troy' by Euripides is about. It's about the women at the fall of Troy losing power and control in their lives. They support one another in such ghastly horrors, or try to in poor Cassandra's case. Jealousy, hatred and fear are rampant. They did not fight or die in the Trojan War like their male loved ones, however the women (queen, princesses and chorus) refuse to lose their identities or their humanity, even when they are shipped off by the Greeks to be sex slaves in other regions at the end of the play. 

They would prefer to be dead - to end the suffering - but they don't want to lose hope either. The strength of Queen Hecuba is remarkable yet complex, for she has loved and lost as much as the others. She is at their level now, and must adapt to it.

The Greek herald Talthybius is also a somewhat sympathetic character. You know he must feel for these women, that he is not like the Greek enemies. But he is only a messenger. Another tragic person doomed to live through his assigned role, like the women.

Unlike when I wrote about it in my school exam, typing about 'The Women of Troy' here will not do it justice for me.

Read the play, or watch it on stage. Feel the power. Feel the ungodly suffering the women go through in the enemy's hands - in fate's hands - for being Trojans.

For being women.

Final Score: 5/5