Grief, Rage, and Solidarity: Finding the Concept of Menis in Euripides’ Hecuba

• In Event: The Political Status of Women in Chinese and Greek Classics

Abstract

Often, both within literature and society, women emerge as primarily emotional beings. Sometimes, this inherent assumption of emotionality blocks female participation in political life. Greek tragedy both reproduces and challenges this assumption, depending on the play and the interpretation that is privileged in a particular reading. Since tragedy often emphasizes the experience of pain and suffering at the heart of communal life, the emotions linked to pain and suffering are often quite powerfully represented within the plays. Central to these texts are the laments, dirges, and songs that beautifully express, in particular, the grief and rage that punctuate the politics of suffering. As an institution, tragedy developed against a backdrop of the regulation and suppression of these emotions. In the 6th century BCE, famed lawmaker Solon instituted a series of reforms directed at restraining the wild and disorderly behavior of women in grief—these reforms cast women’s mourning in particular as excessive. However, the tragic stage not only preserved but even celebrated the excessive character of female emotions, prompting further examination of the implications of such excessive expressions of pain and suffering. While potentially destructive, there is an opening for democratic renewal made possible in excess. The essay employs the concept of menis (grief-wrath) to argue that such excessive emotions can lead to female empowerment by demanding solidarity. At the heart of such solidarity is the shared recognition of grief and rage, made possible through excess. This essay offers an analysis of Euripides’ Hecuba to paint link between menis and solidarity, found between the Trojan women and Hecuba, who act together to pursue vengeance. This essay rereads this act by recasting the object of the women’s wrath to be an agent of the oppressive structures intended to limit the political possibilities of these women. In doing so, this essay challenges the idea that emotionality is an obstacle to politics; instead, by enacting a politics of solidarity, the emotionality of menis can be critical for collective action.

Author

• Danielle Hanley, Clark University