Combat Trauma and Ajax

A Script-Based Approach

Dados Bibliográficos

ID23432156
AutoresConstantine Christoforou (University of Roehampton, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Páginas63-82
Data de publicação2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoCHAPTER
PeriódicoCombat Stress in Pre-modern Europe (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraSpringer International Publishing (PUBLISHER • SG)
DOI10.1007/978-3-031-09947-2_4
OpenAlexW4312575921
ISBN9783031099472
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas36

This chapter analyses the emotional experience of Sophocles’ Ajax and argues that he is suffering from a form of combat trauma unique to fifth-century Athens. Recent developments in the field of Emotion Studies have demonstrated that analysing ‘Scripts’ provides the most well-rounded account of a given culture’s emotional experiences. Through utilising this script-based methodology, I have uncovered the following script for combat trauma in Sophocles’ Ajax: Ajax is humiliated after not being awarded the arms of Achilles which he feels he has the rights to. Traumatised by this, Ajax is overcome with rage. Ajax then commits torturous acts on (what he believes to be) the Greek generals; after this, Ajax’s rage cools and he contemplates a life without honour. Realising such a life has no meaning, Ajax dies by suicide. By studying Ajax’s behaviour from his failure to win the arms of Achilles until his suicide, I show that we are seeing a depiction of trauma, and that this trauma is explainable through ancient Greek cultural ideas regarding war, honour, humiliation, shame, and suicide. Ajax is one of many warriors whose experiences can be read in new ways by utilising a script-based approach and offers a solution to the opposing Universalist and Relativist schools of thought.

Ajax · Combatant · Honour · Humiliation · Political science · Shame · Web application · World Wide Web · Classical Antiquity Studies · Computer Science · Families in Therapy and Culture · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification