ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDY: A STUDY ON THE NATURE OF DYSTOPIANISM By ANNABEL JANE ELIZABETH HEATH A thesis submitted to University of Birmingham for the degree of MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity College of Arts and Law September 2010 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Dedication This thesis marks the culmination of a journey that I started when I was eight years of age and now it has come to a reluctant end. I should like to thank many people who have helped me to get here. Firstly to Mr Tyler for introducing me to Latin, Miss Johnson who kept my love of Classics alive, all my lecturers at university for their support and to Dr Niall Livingstone, my supervisor. I should also like to thank my mother, Rosemary, and sister, Alex, for their invaluable help and to my friends for all their support, specifically Claire, Paul and Laura. Finally I wish to thank Dave, for proof reading, tea and loving encouragement. This thesis is dedicated to my late father, Robert W. Heath. Abstract This Thesis concerns Dystopianism on the Athenian Tragic state in the Fifth century BC. It reconsiders Zeitlin’s view that Thebes was the mirror image of Athens and instead argues Argos represents the anti-Athens. It also explores how Thebes and Argos were portrayed, arguing that although both were ‘Sin Cities’, the way they were portrayed on the tragic stage was substantially different. The key themes that are examined in order to reach this conclusion are, the position and role of women especially regarding the Polis/Oikos relationship and the position of the ‘hero’ in the city. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction…………………………………………………….……...1 Chapter Two: Thebes……………………………………………………….………...9 Chapter Three: Case Study…………………………………………………………...35 Chapter Four: Argos………………………………………………………………….46 Chapter Five: Conclusion…………………………………………………………….76 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….83 INTRODUCTION This thesis presents an analysis of Thebes and Argos on the tragic stage, and the differing ways in which they may be used to suggest, by contrast or comparison, what characteristics Athens itself does (or should) possess. The inspiration for this thesis is based on Zeitlin’s essay ‘Thebes: Theater of Self and Society in Athenian Drama’ in Winkler & Zeitlin (1992). Zeitlin suggests that Thebes is the mirror image of Athens representing the ‘other’ on the tragic stage and sees dramatic Thebes as a recurrent concept with certain clusters of ideas that reoccur throughout the interpretations of the myths.1 This thesis argues Thebes is not Zeitlin’s ‘anti-Athens’, rather it is a dystopian portrayal of Athens: a fanciful realm in which social conditions are extravagantly and implausibly worse than in the real world. I will propose alternatively Argos becomes the anti-Athens on the tragic stage, as the values of Argos as shown through tragedy are opposite to those of Athens, and the mirror image metaphor is more applicable to Argos than Thebes. The idea of a dystopia has its roots in the opposing, positive concept of ‘utopia’, an imagined place of implausible perfection. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines utopia as: 1 Zeitlin 1992: 131. 1. An imaginary island, depicted by Sir Thomas More as enjoying a perfect social, legal, and political system. b. transf. Any imaginary, indefinitely-remote region, country, or locality. 2. A place, state, or condition ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs, and conditions. b. An impossibly ideal scheme, esp. for social improvement.2 Although this thesis is not concerned with utopianism, a brief sojourn into the plethora of utopian literary criticism is of benefit in understanding any proposed dystopian analysis. The concept of the utopia was discussed by Foucault who saw it as an unreal place that presented society in a perfect form or as a society turned upside down.3 There has been much study on the concept of utopia. Kumar sees it as living “in a world that cannot be but where one fervently wishes to be”.4 Kumar continues to argue in this work that all societies had a utopian ideal and that the Hellenic utopia presented ‘the city’ as the only opportunity for reason and the good life.5 The concept of the Hellenic utopia is discussed in Hesiod’s Works and Days but there will not be an in depth discussion on this topic. It must be noted however, in Works and Days there is a contrast between what is seen as the good place and the ‘golden age’ and the bad place or ‘age of iron’ where Hesiod describes the pride of 2 Oxford English Dictionary: sv Utopia. 3 Foucault 1986: 24. 4 Kumar 1991: 3. 5 Kumar 1991: 12. the few as having a negative effect on the entire city (241-242). Conversely in Hesiod the ‘golden age’ is a rural idyll. The idea of the ‘golden age’ has been discussed in relation to Marxist thinking, and Geoghegan discusses the use of the golden age metaphor as a way of giving substance and plausibility to a utopian future.6 Konstan discusses utopianism in relation to comedy, and argues convincingly that there are many forms of utopia found in classical literature that represent the social ‘other place’.7 This observation is key in understanding how the city was portrayed on the stage, and aids in the comprehension of complicated images of Athens such as ‘cloudcukooland’ (The Birds), where the city is a complex image of Athens’ own contradictions.8 By differentiating the forms of utopia it becomes easier to understand the city. This is potentially a failing of other commentators on utopianism who consider there is only one kind of utopia, whereas as Konstan has shown, there are a multitude. I will apply a plural analysis of dystopian forms of tragic cities in order to show how each city was differently portrayed. Dystopia is defined as: 1. An imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible. 6 Geoghegan 1987: 56. 7 Konstan 1995: 33-34. 8 Konstan 1995: 44. The OED notes the concept of dystopia is first attested to in Hansard, recording J.S. Mill’s use of the adjective ‘dystopian’ in 1868 to indicate the reverse of utopian. The political scientist Williams defined dystopias as: “images of a future so terribly imperfect that, given a chance, people would prefer to flee as far as their wherewithal can possibly take them”.9 Dalton-Brown notes regarding Russian literature: “the dystopian plot follows an inverse development to that of the utopia, ending not with climactic joy but with doubt, uncertainty, fear, or at best an expression of rather naive optimism”.10 Kumar sees the utopia and anti-utopia as being locked together, and that “the anti-utopia is formed by utopia and feeds parasitically on it”.11 This analysis can be applied liberally to this thesis, as I will argue the anti-utopian or dystopian analysis of the tragic city is a form of corruption of the utopia, i.e. Athens. Where Kumar12 is limited is his assumption that there is only one type of parasite, I will argue that there is a plurality of dystopias on the tragic stage and it is the ‘type’ of dystopia that is key in understanding the tragic city. As the term dystopia is a relatively modern invention the definition is fluid and has been applied to modern plays, books and films such as Blade Runner (1982) where the hero/villain dichotomy is blurred.13 The modern interpretations of dystopia are important to understand as they shape how the modern scholar perceives the tragedies through the social and cultural traditions of the age. In modern literature evidence for 9 Williams 1988: 384. 10 Dalton-Brown 1995: 112. 11 Kumar 1987: 100. 12 Kumar: 1987. 13 Williams 1988: 389. the pluralities of dystopias are more profound. There are some general themes within modern dystopian fiction, however each author creates his or her own dystopia. Within the fictional dystopia Dalton-Brown argues there is a breakdown of law and order or another key function of society, for example in Laz by Makanin, where those in power were absent and ineffectual while society crumbles around them.14 This is indicative of the isolation of the people from the rulers, a theme that will be discussed later in this thesis. Williams shows that the breakdown of law and order and the curtailment of individual rights by the centralised state is key in forming a dystopia in his examination of modern films such as Escape from New York (1981).15 His arguments highlight the effect of the dysfunctional ruler in causing the breakdown of society. Orwell’s 1984 presents a more complicated analysis. Here, law and order are present, but it is the nature of such laws that aid in the creation of the dystopia. Indeed Kumar presents the argument that the anti-utopia had developed by the time 1984 was written such that a slight exaggeration of contemporary trends was sufficient to present a fully founded anti-utopia.16 Therefore a number of small matters are changed to induce the creation of a dystopian paradigm of modern society. 14 Dalton-Brown 1995: 113. 15 Williams 1988: 387. 16 Kumar 1987: 110.