Philoctetes
Dr. Green
Disgust cycle
• Agreeable to disgust
– Smell
• identification as disgusting
• Avoid the area
– Taste and texture
• avoid contact
• danger of contact
– Vomiting
• expulsion
• segregation and isolation
– Immune system attacks
• destruction
Main Characters
• Who are the main characters?
Neoptolemus
Odysseus
Achilles
Achilles
Heracles
Characters
• What do they represent?
Meaning
• Odysseus
– wily intelligence
• Achilles
– ultimate warrior
• Neoptolemus
– honor vs loyality to the cause
• Heracles
– son of Zeus and a mortal woman named Alcmene
– driven mad by the goddess Hera, so ,in a frenzy, he
kills his own children.
Prologue
• What is the setting?
• How is in the Prologue?
• What is the situation?
Setting
• Desolate place where Philoctetes was
abandoned.
Philoctetes
• Why was Philoctetes abandoned?
• Where does he live?
• How does he support himself?
Philoctetes
• Bitten by viper
• Sign of disgust
– Terrible odor
• foul stench of foot
• foul-smelling
– Oozing blood
– Crippled
– Terrible cries
Characters
• Odysseus
• Neoptolemus
Conflict
• Why are Odysseus and Neoptolemus on the
island?
• What are the three possible methods for
solving this problem?
Why there?
• Need Philoctetes to take Troy
• What was the Trojan War?
Three Methods
• Persuasion
• Force
– His bow makes him invincible
• Deception
Methods
• Which option does Odysseus think they
should use?
Odysseus
•
take by ruse—”tongue is master”
Method
• What method does Neoptolemus want to
use?
Method
• Wants to use force
Odysseus
• What does Odysseus tell Neoptolemus to say?
Odysseus
• He hates the Greeks
• He has abandoned the war
Conclusion
• Who is in the Conclusion?
Conclusion
•
•
•
•
Neoptolemus
Odysseus
Philoctetes
Heracles
Conclusion
• Neo return to undo his mistake of lying and
give the bow back
• Odysseus threatens Neoptolemus, but hides
• Neoptolemus calls out Philoctetes
– Had taken his means of subsistence
• As hands it to Philoctetes, Odysseus appears
Conclusion
• Neoptolemus
– “you have become savage”
– “you distrust all”
– come to Troy
• Philoctetes
– Prevented by “troubled treatment” he forsees
– Wants to be taken home, as promised
• Neoptolemus
– agrees to take home
Heracles
• Tells Philoctetes to
– go to Troy, where
– He shall be healed
– He kill Paris
– He receives honors--spoils given to him
– He works with Neoptolemus to take Troy
– Twin lions
– Show reverence to gods
Episodes
• Episode 1
– Philoctetes condition
• lonely, a castaway, so friendless and so miserable
• eats doves killed by bow
– Neoptolemus
• Has been dishonored by the Greeks
Episodes
• Episode 2
– Philoctetes
• trusts Neoptolemus because they have the same
enemy
• “all human destiny is full of the fear and the danger
that prosperity may be followed by its opposite. He
who stands clear of trouble must beware of dangers,
[505] and when a man lives at ease, then it is that he
must look most closely to his livelihood, lest it secretly
suffer ruin.”
Episodes
• Episode 3
– Neoptolemus agrees to take Philoctetes home
– Merchant
• Diomedes and forceful Odysseus are sailing for Phil
• Odysseus capture Helenus, who prophisized that the
Greeks would not win without Philoctetes
– Philoctetes
• Odysseus will not persuade, rather listen to viper
– Neoptolemus
• Tricks Philoctetes into giving him the bow
Episodes
• Episode 4
– Philoctetes in agony
• Begs Neoptolemus to cut off his leg
– Neoptolemus takes bow until pain eases
– Sleep will come to ease great pain
– Philoctetes passes out from the pain
Episodes
• Episode 5
– Philoctetes awakens
– Neoptolemus
• “All is offense when a man has abandoned his true nature and does
what does not suit him.”
• can't bring himself to do it
– Philoctetes
• Realizes that betrayed by Neo
– Odysseus comes in
– Philoctetes
• Would rather kill himself than go to Troy
• Wants revenge
– Odysseus
• Wants to leave him here, but take his bow
Choral Odes
• Parados
– pity--alone, fierce disease
– stripped of all life's gifts
– no companionship
• Choral 1 and 2
– Sympathy
Choral Odes
• Episode 3
– Philoctetes has wronged no one
– a doom so repugnant as this of Philoctetes. For
though he had wronged no one by force or
thievery
– no care, no support no comfort
– eat arrowed food, stagnant water not wine
– Needs to be rescued and taken home
Choral Odes
• Choral Ode 4
– sleep brings relief from pain
• Choral Ode 5
– Philoctetes
• can't kill doves to eat any more, will die of starvation
• wants a weapon to kill himself to end the pain
– Chorus
• you chose to reject the better fate, and to accept the worse.
• Experiencing the hate-filled, baneful curse of outcast
• He should go to Troy