Insidious Trauma in Sophocles’ Women of Trachis

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 2 delves into the themes, plot, diction, and stagecraft of Sophocles’ Women of Trachis for examples of “insidious trauma,” which broadens the definition of trauma to address pervasive fear of sexual assault, populace-ravaging warfare, and other kinds of violence, to which female characters in tragedy know that they are vulnerable, and for which they are often blamed. In Women of Trachis, Heracles’ homecoming is derailed when Deianeira discovers that he has raped and enslaved a woman named Iole, whom he has sent home to be his concubine after sacking her city. Deianeira fashions a love charm for Heracles out of blood that she received from a centaur who sexually assaulted her, without realizing that this charm is in fact a poison. Deianeira’s stories about her past and decisions in the present thus touch on discrete episodes of sexual assault as well as those best described as insidious trauma, including the pain of waiting for her absent and neglectful husband and her nostalgia for a childhood free from fear of sexual violence. Despite the significant challenges to recognizing this range of experiences as traumatic, Sophocles’ Women of Trachis teaches spectators to bear witness to women’s trauma through the mistakes and late learning of two internal witnesses: the Chorus of young Trachinian women and Deianeira’s son, Hyllus.