Characterization of Andromache
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Andromache is presented as an exemplary wife and mother and, despite the fact that she was married to three different men, an exemplary widow as well. She is featured in three extant works of Greek literature--The Iliad and two plays by Euripides, The Trojan Women and Andromache--and her character and the details of her story are fairly consistent throughout her three appearances. A comparison of the treatment of the character of Andromache in these three works demonstrates how this basic model of the virtuous woman could be adapted to somewhat different functions without losing the essential qualities that appear to have been associated with her name. Andromache was first married to Hector (son of Priam and Hecuba, the king and queen of Troy) and their infant son was named Astyanax. After Hector's death and the destruction of Troy their son was killed by the conquerors and Andromache was awarded as a prize of war to Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles, the slayer of Hector. In Phthia, in Thessaly, she bore a son named Molossus and, following the murder of Neoptolemos, she married Helenus, Hector's brother. Helenus inherited Neoptolemos' kingdom and it was promised that Andromache's son Molossus would begin a new line of kings there. These basic facts of Andromache's life are spread out through the three works. In the Iliad she makes her first appearance in one of the most unusual scenes in the epic poem when, in Book VI, Hector finds her on the battlements of Troy wa
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ne of the "kings Molossian" (Androm. 1247) foretold by Thetis in the Andromache. The tender interlude of Hector and Andromache, therefore, establishes that they are nearly ideal male and female examples of the Trojan people and shows how Andromache is tied to the family of Priam by every conceivable means so that she is prepared for her future role.
At Hector's funeral ceremonies in Book XXIV Andromache reiterates these points. She fears that Astyanax will be thrown from the walls by "some Achaian . . . in anger because Hector once killed his brother, / or his father, or his son (Il. 24.734-37). And here she consciously evokes the irony of the fact that, of course, her father, brothers, and husband have all been killed by the Achaians until all that is left to her is an infant son. This also focuses attention on the fact that as a woman Andromache is incapable of taking the same kind of revenge on the Greeks and this hints at the more womanly means by which she will eventually avenge the Trojans--her continuation of the Trojan line despite the destruction of Troy.
The Trojan Women takes up the story of the Iliad within a day or so of the events that close the poem and the epic's three principal mourners of Hector (Andromac
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2209
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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