Motherhood and War

This novel explores how motherhood is a burden on the women of the Trojan war. The turmoil of the conflict has perverted what should be a source of joy and turned it instead into one of grief and anguish. The first mother we meet is Creusa, whose husband has fled Troy, taking their child with him. She is woken by the chaos of the burning city and immediately searches for her son, only to find he has disappeared. She is a mother, but only in name: she has been separated from the only person who can confer that status on her. The war has robbed her of her motherhood.

Motherhood is also a torment for Hecabe: she cannot help but remember the deaths of her sons slain in the war, and she sits helplessly as her daughters are taken from her by the victorious...