Thursday, 10 May 2012

Task 3: pg 54
Look at the Victory at Troy from the point of view of

women
ethics( ToK )

Due by Sunday 13 May. 8 pm

19 comments:

  1. ‘Women of Troy prostrate over dead husbands’ is an impactful sentence. ‘prostrate’ is an act of submission and symbolic of the acute loss and suffering the women of Troy have been subjected to because of the war. A lot of Trojan men have been lost in the road to victory and their wives are now widows. ‘Their very cries are slaves cries now’ means that these women have been turned into slaves by the victors. Thus the victory of Troy has not only sucked the happiness out of Trojan women’s lives but has also degraded them socially.
    The concept of ethics comes in in the treatment of the Trojan ‘aged grandfathers’ and women. Was it ethical to make them slaves (treat them with disrespect) even after stripping them of their loved ones? Was it ethical to rob them of their social status when they did not participate in the war and had not started the war? ‘If the fleet sails free from the taint of sin…..outward course’ again brings some ethical questions to the forefront. First, is it fine to show disrespect to the Gods of a place just because you have had victory over the people of that place? If the soldiers have profaned (treated with feeling of irreverence) ‘holy places’, are the Gods justified in taking their lives? Is killing someone for a mistake they have made unethical? The bottom question however is this- is it ethical (even for the Gods) to kill/ commit unethical action as a punishment for unethical action? If yes, then the cycle will take long to stop and will claim many lives in its course. For example, in the Orestian Trilogy Clytemnestra kills Agememnon because he sacrifices his daughter. Agememnon’s son kills his mother because she kills Agamemnon. The Furies kill the son because he kills his mother. So is it ethical to lead to a chain of so many unethical actions for 1 unethical action committed? This is the question that will resonate throughout the trilogy.
    However, all the above has been influenced by my modern-audience status. The concept of ethics is highly relative and the answer I give to the above question may be miles different from that of an ancient Greek audience because of our differences in understanding of the word ‘ethics’.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The accounts of most wars in history and mythology are accounts of what men want: glory and honor. For heroes, war is about carving a place for themselves in history. Dying in a battle while fighting for your country was considered noble. Therefore the dead were honored, not mourned.

    Yet what do women feel about war? Are they proud of their husbands and sons because they died fighting? They might be. However in most cases, unlike men, I think that their grief overrules their pride. Men are ecstatic when they are victorious in war. They neither respect nor pity their fallen opponents. Their ecstasy overrules their reason. They do things they would generally not do like plundering or defiling holy places. Women are different. I think that the strongest emotion that women feel, when they hear of their men's victory, is relief. They empathize with the women whose husbands or sons died irrespective of which country they are. They are relieved and thankful that they are not the ones mourning. Moreover they are not very pleased by the atrocities that their men commit. Yet again their relief overrules their unhappiness. This is evident by the tone in which Clytemnestra describes the victory. The tone Clytemnestra uses to describe the sorrow to of the women of Troy is empathetic while the tone she uses to describe the vandalistic nature of the Greek heroes is almost reproachful. Another aspect of women that Clytemnestra’s verse brings about is that women can get vengeful towards the people who have killed their loved ones during war. “God grant them we see them safe! … Those whom no wakeful anger of the forgotten dead waits to surprise with vengeance” suggests that though everyone had forgotten about, Iphigenia being sacrificed, because the war was won, Clytemnestra hasn’t. She is waiting for her vengeance.

    Is the use of deception, by using the wooden horse, to gain victory in Troy ethical? It is, if you believe that all is fair in love and war. I disagree. However when war itself is most often unfair and unreasonable, I am not sure how one can determine the ethics in war. While it is difficult to determine the ethics to be followed in order to win a war, it is not very difficult to determine the ethics of how one should behave after the war is won. I do not think it is ethical for the victors to degrade the defeated. It is not ethical to plunder their homes or destroy their places of worship. Even if the civilians of the defeated have to be taken as slaves (something I don’t think should happen!), they should not be treated cruelly. In short the ethics of post war, according to me, is to treat the defeated with basic minimum respect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Absolutely spot on Grusha...isn't this just intoxicating?

      Delete
  3. Victory delivers two opposite news to the women of Argos and the women of Troy. To the women of Argos it is joy, for they will once again see the men of their family. To the women of Troy, it is, figuratively, the end of life; their men who survived, their unborn children and themselves will be enslaved forever by the people of Argos. However, a similarity exists: the victory would mean nothing to those who have already lost their beloved. It would only be worse for the women of Troy who will now become slaves. It is very ironic that the men are the ones who create the trouble but women are the real suffers for they survive and live through the miserable outcome.


    Any war of any purpose whatsoever, is not ethical. This is for one simple reason: thou shalt not kill. This is the center idea of'ethics.' One shall not make others grieve. No war has no casualties and damage. Therefore, for me, it is out of question to even ask whether war is ethical or not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good answer Kevin---look at the words carefully and analyse them more to further exploit your point of view!

      Delete
  4. The victory of Troy potrays quite a few range of womens` views.It starts with Clytemnestra `s speech ,(phrase) "today greeks hold Troy"expreesing her happiness and joy over the victory over troy.For her and the other women of Argos it is happiness as their men have won and will return back.But the phrase "women of Troy prostrate" shows that the very women of the opposing country are filled with sadness and remorse beacause their men are no more alive and will never ever return back.This shows that women are emotional irrespectable of their countries.
    The picture of justice that emerges from Agamemnon is pretty confusing. Most characters in the play view it as a form of payback: you hurt me, so I hurt you. This gets complicated, however, like when Aegisthus considers it an act of justice to kill Agamemnon, even though Agamemnon never did anything directly to him. Clytemnestra speaks later in the play with verbal irony,of course,for she plans to kill Agamemnon(her husband) to avenge the death of Iphigenia(her daughter).This creates a tone that women are also filled with vengence if their loves ones are killed. This character of the queen also potrays the other side of women where they can get revenge on anyone if they are hurted.

    When it comes to war,subsequetly it is unethical to kill others and fill the atmosphere with remorse.Everything in war is not considered to be ethical because one party gains victory while the other one is at major loss of their people.To me, it is not ethical and not jusifiable to fight a war as it is not resonable to find ethics in a war!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good going Samhita--analyse the words used to describe the fall of Troy--you might find more material to support your second premise!

      Delete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. War left women on both sides of the battle in a pitiful state, as prisoners of their own fear. As women in Troy await the return of their husbands, their hopes are extinguished when they realize that they have lost the war. Meanwhile, women in Argos experience relief as their fear is assuaged by the shining of the beacon, signaling victory. Ironically, the war against Troy took place all for the cause of Helen, daughter of Zeus - one woman.

    Yet, does victory give you reason to be unethical? Does it allow you to exploit the men, women, and children of the country you have won over? Is it fair to degrade the women of your own country to slaves for having lost their husbands - and thus, their basic right to humanity? Questioning these unchallenged ideas is necessary to understand the so-called 'democracy', justice, and accepted courses of action looming behind the Oresteian Trilogy as a whole.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good answer Arthi...do you want to refer to the exact lines?

      Delete
  7. From Promit vis DM:)

    The lines “that will not blend. Pour oil and vinegar in one vessel.... and never mix" is a very important line of in the book. the women of Argos are very happy that the will see their husbands again, sons happy to see their fathers and fathers happy to see their sons this was the oil of the mixture, but what about the women of troy? they were devastated, not only did they lose the men who were the head of the family but also were degraded, they did not hold the same amount of social status that they had when they were married and had their husbands alive, if that was not painful enough, they had been captured and were taken as slaves, not only women but also elders and minors, this degraded them more in the society. The women also lost their own land they had no right whatsoever to come back into Troy and call it their own, not anymore. The ethics part of the play comes in when they had taken them as slaves, wasn’t it enough that they had lost so much? Was it necessary to make them slaves and take them back to Argos? Was it ethical to take the elders as slaves? They had already lost their sons and daughter-in-laws, was it ethical to strip them off their social status? I don’t think it was even ethical from god’s side to ask for a sacrifice which would be so cruel to the parents. I even think that it was not ethical to disrespect the gods of Troy just because they had claimed victory over it, the land belongs to that god and you should always have respect for every god.
    It wasn’t even ethical for the gods to kill a person just because of 1 unethical action. For example, Clytemnestra killing Agamemnon because he had sacrificed his daughter to the gods, and then Agamemnon’s son killing Clytemnestra because she killed Agamemnon, and the furies killing Agamemnon’s son because he killed Clytemnestra. Was it ethical of god to finish so many lives because of 1 unethical action? And was it ethical to ask for a sacrifice of a young virgin maiden?
    This however is my modern way of understanding ethics, but maybe back in ancient Greece it was not a good thing to question the deeds of god as they had way more respect and fear in stored for the god.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Clytemnestra is Agamemnon's wife and has ruled Argos in his absence. She plans his murder with ruthless determination, and feels no guilt after his death; she is convinced of her own rectitude and of the justice of killing the man who killed her daughter. We can see that a women is showing her anger due to what her husband has done. The was has women in a sad state as the women are awaiting the return of theeir respective husbands.
    The role of women in ancient Greek life, was considered to be insignificant compared to that of Greek men. And yet, in tragedies, women were often written as major characters, revealing insights on how women were treated and thought of in society. Many well-known Greek plays contain several well-written, complex, female characters. Each female character takes upon herself, the role of villain, the role of victim, and the role of heroine. This is what we see in the play agamemnon. We see the villainess in the female character clytemenestra. Clytmnestra was certainly a villainess. As agamemnon sacrifices their daughter.
    Now wen it comes to the war what is think is killing people and hurting their familys is defenitly unethical. I don’t think it is human to be happy after winning a war because subsequently there are a lot of lives which are lost. War is a peculiar human activity, in that it can bring out some of our best traits, such as courage and self-sacrifice, yet also elicit tremendous cruelty and suffering. It’s therefore a prime candidate for ethical reflection.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Women in Troy after the battle (line 328~331) have completely lost hope and future. They “prostrate” over dead male households, who kept their life going and defined their position in society. Once the men in the patriarchal society are eliminated, there is a breakdown of the society. Women struggle due to lost of their identity of purpose of life. In the posture of “prostrate”, there is sense of loss, despair, overwhelming fear, and submission. Women of Troy do nothing to fight back with the Argive soldiers knowing that they do not have power to change anything. They quickly accept that they are “slaves”.
    Clytemnestra is the voice of the women in Argos. They are aware that there is journey back home and concerned lest they are tempt by things that might anger gods. In the phrase “God grant we see them safe!”, there is strong wish that bid their safe journey back home. The repeated sentence “the gods may grant them safely to retrace their outward course” and the repeated mentioning of gods reflects culture that centers on faith towards god.

    Although the reason for attack on Troy seems quite reasonable- to punish Paris who ran away with Helen, the wife of Menelaus, the result was the death of entire soldiers of Troy. This does not seem ethical because it is only Paris and Helen who have to be punished. The women, children and aged grandfathers are innocent; they did not do anything to deserve such destruction.
    Many of women and children in Argos also suffered a huge loss -“and back to waiting homes he sends slag from the ore, a little dust to drain hot tears from hearts of friends;”. The soldiers of Argos had to fight to the death for a woman who abandoned the duty of wife. This created unhappiness among the Argive people –“And fierce resentment mutters low, ‘yes-for another’s wife!’”. Death of the soldiers seem pointless since there will be no outcome of the fight. Even if they win, and get Helen back, she will not be accepted–people will refuse to respect her, she would rather choose to die than live with shame and degradation.
    Yes, the Argive soldiers won the battle, and fulfilled the prophecy made. But the course Agamemnon took; to kill a virgin daughter to rescue sinful wife, was not ethical. He gagged her, and took away the freedom to express her view. He sacrificed her to god as he would with any other animal –“kid (baby goat)”, relegating her position to mere animal.
    The victory of Troy resulted in “echo with cries that will not blend”. It disturbed the harmony. The victory of Argos left Troy in great loss. Thus, it cannot be called a ‘victory’ from point of view of ethics. Ethics dictates harmony of people and respecting others’ emotions. The division of the people into two groups- “the unhappy and the happy” and “discord grates the ear” clearly mark that the outcome was not ethical.
    Humans are distinguished from animals by rules and morals they have. The war that resulted “No rules to keep, no order of place” shows disruption of system and position of humans that fallen to that of animals. They have lost the basic morals, rules and ethics that helped them going.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The victory at Troy has left mixed emotions in Argos and Troy. There is a lot of joy in the lives of women at Argos, but what about the the soldiers of Argos who had lost their lives? It is definitely a very terrible situation for the women, as they had lost their identity in the society. During those times, women had no rights and freedoms of their own and their main motto in life was to serve their husband and look after the household and children. But now that the husbands are gone, they had lost their identity. But on the other hand, they might have been filled with pride in their hearts as dying in war was considered to be the "right" way of dying for a man and it was an honorable death. So I believe there is sadness, of course, but their is a lot of pride as well in the hearts of women of Argos and the fact that Argos had won the war made it even better for the women of those soldiers. Their husband's death hadn't gone in vain. Whereas the women of Troy would be totally destroyed as they lost the war and their husbands. It was a very bad situation for them as the Troy had been defeated and all the men had died.

    The victory of troy from an ethical point of view is just simply unethical. Any type of war and killing is unethical no matter what the situation is. Killing of fellow humans is very unethical and it is a sin according to the "7 deadly sins." Victory at Troy was unethical as many soldiers had died, also it was unethical of Argos to defeat the Trojan army through deceit, nonetheless it was a smart move from them but using deceit as a tool to defeat an army is just very unethical from my perspective.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Arnav, just a clarification. Killing is not one of the seven deadly sins. It is one of the 10 commandments :)

      Delete
    2. Oh I'm so sorry :)
      Thanks for clearing it out!

      Delete