The hero in Sophocles’ Trachiniae
Creators: name: Shigley, Laurie Eileen
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: The Trachiriiae has been seen as something of an anomaly among Sophocles' seven extant plays. It is the only play that is not named for its hero, and critics have argued variously that Deianeira, or Heracles, or both Deianeira and Heracles are the heroes of the play. This thesis seeks to establish Deianeira as the hero of the Trachiriiae. In order to provide an objective model against which both Deianeira and Heracles can be measured, a summary of eight views of the Sophoclean tragic hero, excluding references to the Trachiriiae, is presented. Emphasis is given to the heroic model of B.M.W. Knox, who himself, believing that the Trachiriiae is not clearly based on the figure of a tragic hero, excludes it from his development of a heroic model. The models of the Sophoclean hero do apply to the Trachiniae, and Deianeira, not Heracles, is the hero. The lives and deaths of Deianeira and Heracles are interrelated in the closest possible way, but by looking with a discerning eye, one discovers that Deianeira is the leading dramatic figure. Deianeira fulfills the heroic characteristics, including those presented by Knox, remarkably well. Within the play, Deianeira faces the supreme, crisis of her life. Isolated in time and space to a profound degree, she finds the source and greatness of her free and responsible action of trying to recover Heracles' love within herself alone. Even though she acts out of love for Heracles, her dependence on the power of the "charms" of the lbve-philtre suggests defiance of and withdrawal from Cypris' will and power. By her act, she becomes totally and tragically isolated from men and abandoned by the gods. She destroys Heracles, her one key to the worlds outside and inside herself. By her love, she destroys what she most loves, and her own identity. Like Ajax, she is unwilling to live without that identity, and so, in a quiet display of nobility and strength, sacrifices herself to the same love that made her unwittingly sacrifice Heracles. Throughout the play it is Deianeira's will and strength that cause arid suffer the dramatic movement and tension. It is her will to obtain the truth about Iole from Lichas, to send the anointed robe to Heracles, and to die without attempting to receive forgiveness from Hyllus of Heracles. Deianeira's will and fate act upon Heracles. Heracles belongs to her but she does not belong to him and hence it is she who is dramatically independent. The destruction of Heracles is a direct result of an action of her will and is the culmination of her tragedy. Heracles does not rise to meet his fate but is full of bitterness against the fate that has brought him down at the hands of a woman. Unlike Deianeira, who within the course of the play reaches her end and fulfills her heroic will, Heracles does not meet his final end, death and release from his labors; nor does he hold any control over his destiny. He is helpless and weak in his suffering until he hears Nessus' name, at which time he accepts the inevitability of his fate. Throughout the play he is treated more as a force thaxi a person. Nor is he independent; he is a slave to the metaphorical voooz of his passion and its physical manifestations. His catastrophe is the result of his general depravity rather than a single error. He accepts no responsibility for any of his actions and is, in fact, a pawn in the action of the series of events set in motion by Deianeira. His own action is merely in response to Deianeira's and exercises110 control over the outcome of the play's events. When he realizes the inevitability of his death, all action has already been taken. Nor is Heracles truly isolated. He is, instead, extremely self-centered. His self-centeredness is at its most obvious during his suffering, which he is not able to endure and so to rise to the stature of a moral hero. He will meet his death without having risen above his own nature; his death will mark the end of his life and sufferings, but nothing more. Heracles does not satisfy many of the characteristics ascribed to other Sophoclean heroes. He could hardly be considered the hero of his scene, let alone of the entire play. In the play's structure, Heracles exists because of Deianeira, whose life and death do have a purpose in the play. In fact, Heracles is the unheroic with which the heroic Deianeira is contrasted. Heracles does not appear until Deianeira has killed herself for love of him, and the total terror of his self-centered existence is the realization of the full tragedy of her life and death. His appearance at the end of the play and complete lack of interest in her death and innocence consummate, her tragedy. One looks at Heracles to see what the object of Deianeira's great love really is. The play is named for the Chorus instead of for Deianeira. In this respect, the relationship between Deianeira and the Chorus is significant. Deianeira appears to a certain degree to be the leader of the Chorus of Trachinian maidens. The similarity of their status to that of the maiden Deianeira's points to them as universalizing agents of the personal and tragic life of Deianeira, the hero of the Trachiniae.