Constructing the Civic Identity and Ideology through the Other in Greek Tragedy

초록

Greek Athenian tragedy of the fifth-century BC in the social context of the City Dionysia worked to circulate ideas necessary to the perpetuation of the polis system. As the patriarchal, imperial, and xenophobic society, the male citizens of this patriarchal society held all of the power; all the slaves were foreigners; and non-Athenians were considered completely the Other. The Choruses and characters in Greek tragedy, I believe, constructed the civic identity and ideology portraying the choruses and characters as the Other—women, slaves, and foreigners. For investigating my interests in Greek tragedy, I examine first theoretical perspectives on the Other which are inseparable from Greek Athenian social context. The theories based on feminism and anti-racism, especially Froma Zeitlin’s notion of ‘playing the Other,’ and Edith Hall’s ‘inventing the barbarian,’ set my position for the reading of the choruses and characters in Greek tragedies.Applying the scholars’ perspectives on the Other, I deal with Aeschylus’s ≪Persians≫, Sophocles’ ≪The Women of Trachi≫, and Euripides’ ≪Hecuba≫ taking a different look on the function of Chorus. And I focus on Euripides’ ≪Medea≫, ≪Andromache≫, and ≪Trojan Woman≫ to search for how Greek Athenian tragedians depict the Other for constructing the civic identity and ideology in terms of spectatorship in three areas: in the text of the plays, in performance at the Theatre of Dionysus, and in Greek Athenian society in general. This thesis scrutinizes Greek Athenian tragedies’ relation to its political and social context. As an institution, tragedy can reinforce and articulate the civic identity and ideology. Greek conceptions of the Self are structured from a male point of view, with women, barbarians, slaves, and foreigners serving to define less fully human alternatives. The chorus and character can openly articulate such clichés about civic identity, and tragic action can directly or indirectly reinforce civic ideology through the representation of the Other as their functions.

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