Sophocles: Philoctetes and Wounded Warriors

Rufus F.

Rufus is a likeable curmudgeon. He has a PhD in History, sang for a decade in a punk band, and recently moved to NYC after nearly two decades in Canada. He wrote the book "The Paris Bureau" from Dio Press (2021).

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3 Responses

  1. Jason Kuznicki says:

    I’m not sure I agree about the alterity. Many Americans think we too are fighting in the east so that we may be psychically healed from a long-ago injury, and that God commands and blesses our efforts.

    Plus ça change, my friend.Report

      • rufus in reply to rufus says:

        @rufus, But I guess what strikes me as odd about the play is he finally submits to the fleet that betrayed him, and the idea that, if he’d done otherwise, it would have been hubris on his part. It’s hard to think of a modern patriotic story that begins with someone being completely done wrong by the military and finally deciding that fate still requires him to return to the battlefield with them, even though they’ve done nothing to rectify it. He almost seems like a schmuck at the end, although I do understand why he had to do what he did. In the Greek tragedies, it often seems like whatever we call “being true to yourself” they call hubris.Report