Nan Fu, Haoyu Cui

Nan Fu

29 May 2023

Creusa, Feminism, Gentile, Ion, Trauma narrative.

Ion is one of the masterpieces of ancient Greek dramatist Euripides, and its main characters, Ion and Creusa, are characterized by a typical trauma narrative. Although Creusa’s trauma originates from the suppression of women by the Athenian male hegemony, while Ion’s relates to his gentile status, anger is the common point of their traumatic reactions. Creusa’s progression from verbal accusations against Apollo to an eventual counterattack reflects her active trauma repair. In Ion’s shift from narrating his trauma to violent catharsis, his method of trauma repair is more extreme. The analysis of these two trauma narratives facilitates the interpretation of the plight of Athenian women and gentiles from a new perspective.

© 2023, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license