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ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-osu12428497862021-08-03T05:55:49Z Negotiable identities: the interpretation of color, gender, and ethnicity in Aeschylus' <i>Suppliants</i> Thomas, Bridget M. <p>Scholarship on Aeschylus' <i>Suppliants</i> has typically focused on everything but the interpretation of the text itself. One reason for this neglect is the play's strange treatment of a very sensitive topic: the relationship between color and identity. This tragedy challenges audiences (ancient and modern) to think outside of fixed cultural categories (including such rigid distinctions as race and sex], even to interrogate the foundations and justifications for these social categories. In the process the play suggests the radical instability of cultural givens: attention to such instabilities makes it possible to unravel the play's complexities.</p><p>The <i>Suppliants</i> features a chorus of black (Egyptian) women who have recently arrived in Greece: they are fleeing marriage with their cousins, also Egyptians. In order to erase the ties between themselves and their suitors, these women change the terms of their identification: they redefine their <i>genos</i> (family) selectively in terms of more distant (Greek) ancestors. This change in the Danaids' identification has consequences not just for the Danaids and their rejected suitors, but also for the Argives: they must decide how to honor the women as suppliants while at the same time making sense of their ethnic identification in terms of existing ideological categories. The result is an ambiguous status for the Danaids as simultaneously Greek and Egyptian, black and white.</p><p>The negotiation of their ethnic identity also has implications for their gender identity: in ancient Greece color was not only the marker of one's place of origin, it was also a marker of gender: blackness connotes masculinity, whiteness connotes femininity. Is a black woman really a woman? How does she prove/perform her femininity? What are the implications of black masculinity for the relatively pale-skinned Greeks? How do they secure their masculinity in the face of the Egyptian other? By raising such questions the play also questions the very meaning of masculinity and femininity. The contradictions embodied in the Danaids and the Egyptians challenge the basis for such categories as man and woman or Greek and Egyptian; ultimately the play raises more questions than it answers.</p> 1998 Greek and English text The Ohio State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1242849786 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1242849786 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.
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NDLTD
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| language |
Greek and English
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| sources |
NDLTD
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| author |
Thomas, Bridget M.
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| spellingShingle |
Thomas, Bridget M.
Negotiable identities: the interpretation of color, gender, and ethnicity in Aeschylus' <i>Suppliants</i>
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| author_facet |
Thomas, Bridget M.
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| author_sort |
Thomas, Bridget M.
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| title |
Negotiable identities: the interpretation of color, gender, and ethnicity in Aeschylus' <i>Suppliants</i>
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| title_short |
Negotiable identities: the interpretation of color, gender, and ethnicity in Aeschylus' <i>Suppliants</i>
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| title_full |
Negotiable identities: the interpretation of color, gender, and ethnicity in Aeschylus' <i>Suppliants</i>
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| title_fullStr |
Negotiable identities: the interpretation of color, gender, and ethnicity in Aeschylus' <i>Suppliants</i>
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| title_full_unstemmed |
Negotiable identities: the interpretation of color, gender, and ethnicity in Aeschylus' <i>Suppliants</i>
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| title_sort |
negotiable identities: the interpretation of color, gender, and ethnicity in aeschylus' <i>suppliants</i>
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| publisher |
The Ohio State University / OhioLINK
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| publishDate |
1998
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| url |
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1242849786
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| work_keys_str_mv |
AT thomasbridgetm negotiableidentitiestheinterpretationofcolorgenderandethnicityinaeschylusisuppliantsi
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| _version_ |
1719427993259999232
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