In order to reconcile the deus ex machina at the end of Sophocles' Philoctetes with the actions of the rest of the play, this project analyzes the role of Odysseus within the play with special attention to rhetoric. By considering the character of Odysseus as a complex construct referencing both literary and historical contexts, this study suggests that Neoptolemus in fact errs in siding with Philoctetes to the degree that he does by the tragedy's end. The themes of the play involving Philoctetes and Neoptolemus then become warnings against inappropriate emotional responses, again consistent with Heracles' advice in the deus ex machina at the play's end.

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de estudar o personagem Neoptólemo na tragédia Filoctetes (c. 409 a.C.) de Sófocles (c. 496-406 a.C.). Neoptólemo inicialmente é trazido para Lemnos por Odisseu com a missão de auxiliá-lo a reconduzir Filoctetes e o arco de Héracles para Troia. Ao descobrir qual o procedimento proposto por Odisseu, Neoptólemo hesita, propondo que utilizem persuasão aberta para convencer Filoctetes em vez de enganá-lo. Neoptólemo oferece alguma resistência, mas acaba aceitando o sofisma de Odisseu. Ao tomar contato com Filoctetes, Neoptólemo aos poucos aprende sobre o modelo ético de que abriu mão aceitando a proposta de Odisseu. Cria-se um dilema em que o jovem Neoptólemo precisa decidir como irá agir. O próprio ato de decidir é motivo de hesitação para o jovem. Ao optar por uma ou outra atitude, Neoptólemo deverá necessariamente enfrentar todas as consequências de sua escolha, incluindo a impossibilidade voltar atrás, isto é, retroceder ao momento anterior a sua decisão, uma situação infantilizada em que as possibilidades ainda não teriam sido reduzidas por causa de cada escolha feita. Nos momentos finais, antes da chegada de Héracles, Neoptólemo finalmente decide por um caminho aparentemente próprio, intermediário aos que lhe foram apresentados inicialmente e aceita as consequências de sua escolha. / This work aims to study the character Neoptolemus in the tragedy Philoctetes (c. 409 BC) by Sophocles (c. 496-406 BC). Neoptolemus is initially brought to Lemnos by Odysseus with the mission of helping bring Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles back to Troy. Upon discovering the procedure of this mission proposed by Odysseus, Neoptolemus hesitates, suggesting they should openly persuade Philoctetes instead of tricking him. Neoptolemus offers some resistance, but eventually accepts Odysseus' sophistry. Upon making contact with Philoctetes, Neoptolemus gradually learns about the ethical model that he gave up by accepting Odysseus' proposal. This creates a dilemma in which the young Neoptolemus must decide how to act. The act of deciding in itself is cause for hesitation for the youngster. By choosing one attitude or another, Neoptolemus must face all the consequences of his choice, including the inability to go back, that is, back to the moment before the decision was made, a childish situation in which the possibilities have not yet been reduced because of each of his choices. In the final moments before the arrival of Heracles, Neoptolemus finally decides his own path, which is at an intermediate position in relation to the choices that were presented to him and he accepts the consequences of his choice.

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de estudar o personagem Neoptólemo na tragédia Filoctetes (c. 409 a.C.) de Sófocles (c. 496-406 a.C.). Neoptólemo inicialmente é trazido para Lemnos por Odisseu com a missão de auxiliá-lo a reconduzir Filoctetes e o arco de Héracles para Troia. Ao descobrir qual o procedimento proposto por Odisseu, Neoptólemo hesita, propondo que utilizem persuasão aberta para convencer Filoctetes em vez de enganá-lo. Neoptólemo oferece alguma resistência, mas acaba aceitando o sofisma de Odisseu. Ao tomar contato com Filoctetes, Neoptólemo aos poucos aprende sobre o modelo ético de que abriu mão aceitando a proposta de Odisseu. Cria-se um dilema em que o jovem Neoptólemo precisa decidir como irá agir. O próprio ato de decidir é motivo de hesitação para o jovem. Ao optar por uma ou outra atitude, Neoptólemo deverá necessariamente enfrentar todas as consequências de sua escolha, incluindo a impossibilidade voltar atrás, isto é, retroceder ao momento anterior a sua decisão, uma situação infantilizada em que as possibilidades ainda não teriam sido reduzidas por causa de cada escolha feita. Nos momentos finais, antes da chegada de Héracles, Neoptólemo finalmente decide por um caminho aparentemente próprio, intermediário aos que lhe foram apresentados inicialmente e aceita as consequências de sua escolha. / This work aims to study the character Neoptolemus in the tragedy Philoctetes (c. 409 BC) by Sophocles (c. 496-406 BC). Neoptolemus is initially brought to Lemnos by Odysseus with the mission of helping bring Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles back to Troy. Upon discovering the procedure of this mission proposed by Odysseus, Neoptolemus hesitates, suggesting they should openly persuade Philoctetes instead of tricking him. Neoptolemus offers some resistance, but eventually accepts Odysseus' sophistry. Upon making contact with Philoctetes, Neoptolemus gradually learns about the ethical model that he gave up by accepting Odysseus' proposal. This creates a dilemma in which the young Neoptolemus must decide how to act. The act of deciding in itself is cause for hesitation for the youngster. By choosing one attitude or another, Neoptolemus must face all the consequences of his choice, including the inability to go back, that is, back to the moment before the decision was made, a childish situation in which the possibilities have not yet been reduced because of each of his choices. In the final moments before the arrival of Heracles, Neoptolemus finally decides his own path, which is at an intermediate position in relation to the choices that were presented to him and he accepts the consequences of his choice.

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de estudar o personagem Neoptólemo na tragédia Filoctetes (c. 409 a.C.) de Sófocles (c. 496-406 a.C.). Neoptólemo inicialmente é trazido para Lemnos por Odisseu com a missão de auxiliá-lo a reconduzir Filoctetes e o arco de Héracles para Troia. Ao descobrir qual o procedimento proposto por Odisseu, Neoptólemo hesita, propondo que utilizem persuasão aberta para convencer Filoctetes em vez de enganá-lo. Neoptólemo oferece alguma resistência, mas acaba aceitando o sofisma de Odisseu. Ao tomar contato com Filoctetes, Neoptólemo aos poucos aprende sobre o modelo ético de que abriu mão aceitando a proposta de Odisseu. Cria-se um dilema em que o jovem Neoptólemo precisa decidir como irá agir. O próprio ato de decidir é motivo de hesitação para o jovem. Ao optar por uma ou outra atitude, Neoptólemo deverá necessariamente enfrentar todas as consequências de sua escolha, incluindo a impossibilidade voltar atrás, isto é, retroceder ao momento anterior a sua decisão, uma situação infantilizada em que as possibilidades ainda não teriam sido reduzidas por causa de cada escolha feita. Nos momentos finais, antes da chegada de Héracles, Neoptólemo finalmente decide por um caminho aparentemente próprio, intermediário aos que lhe foram apresentados inicialmente e aceita as consequências de sua escolha. / This work aims to study the character Neoptolemus in the tragedy Philoctetes (c. 409 BC) by Sophocles (c. 496-406 BC). Neoptolemus is initially brought to Lemnos by Odysseus with the mission of helping bring Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles back to Troy. Upon discovering the procedure of this mission proposed by Odysseus, Neoptolemus hesitates, suggesting they should openly persuade Philoctetes instead of tricking him. Neoptolemus offers some resistance, but eventually accepts Odysseus' sophistry. Upon making contact with Philoctetes, Neoptolemus gradually learns about the ethical model that he gave up by accepting Odysseus' proposal. This creates a dilemma in which the young Neoptolemus must decide how to act. The act of deciding in itself is cause for hesitation for the youngster. By choosing one attitude or another, Neoptolemus must face all the consequences of his choice, including the inability to go back, that is, back to the moment before the decision was made, a childish situation in which the possibilities have not yet been reduced because of each of his choices. In the final moments before the arrival of Heracles, Neoptolemus finally decides his own path, which is at an intermediate position in relation to the choices that were presented to him and he accepts the consequences of his choice.

This dissertation demonstrates how props act as conduits of knowledge and (thus?) power in Sophocles’ “non-Theban” plays. I show how certain props challenge the definitions and values that they accrue as they move between actors onstage. Key props in these four plays behave unlike other props in extant tragedy, opening up the possibility for a sustained inquiry into the ways that property speaks to and for power. Focusing on the urn in Electra, the bow in Philoctetes, Hector’s sword and Ajax’s own shield in Ajax, and the robe in Trachiniae, this project argues for the centrality of these props in these plays’ verbal exchanges. The introduction sets up a framework and methodology that draws on Michel Foucault’s notion of power-knowledge (pouvoir-savoir) and the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu alongside contemporary thinkers like Jack Halberstam, Jane Bennett, and Sara Ahmed. The first chapter, “The Urn is the Wor(l)d in Sophocles’ Electra,” builds on prior scholarship on this much-studied stage object by showing how it accrues “symbolic power” and comes to construct reality and the social world. The possibility of that consensus breaks down, however, in the face of the familiar/l strife at Argos, and it is through this breakdown that the urn gives audience members a way to examine the play’s puzzling lack of resolution. The second chapter, “Stringing a Bow: Learning, use, and power in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” builds on the previous chapters’ by showing how the bow defines the limits of Neoptolemus’ education on Lemnos and the terms of its own exchange. The bow’s frequent back and forth between characters and its role in Odysseus’s subterfuge belie the fact that it still belongs to Heracles, who alone can authorize its use. This reading draws out the strange relationship between the deceptions of the False Merchant and the divine interventions of Heracles, demonstrating an uncomfortable consonance between the two scenes. The third chapter, entitled “Ajax’s economy of hostility: the necropolitics of kleos,” explores how Ajax paradoxically gives up his shield even as it merges with his identity as a defense for the Achaeans against the Trojans. Ajax himself attempts to manipulate this threat through the handling and “exchange” of the sword of Hector with its native soil, misleading his compatriots — and possibly himself — about his intentions in his so-called “deception speech.” When Hector’s sword pierces Ajax’s body, Trojan and personal hostilities merge until Odysseus manages to rectify the play’s errant exchanges and restore Ajax’s status as a shield for his companions. The fourth and final chapter, “Ceci n’est pas un prop: The robe as gift and garment in Sophocles’ Trachiniae,” shows that the robe’s failure to appear onstage as a prop — the audience might see it as part of Heracles’ costume at the end of the play — enacts the conflict between oikos and wilderness that the characters inhabit, exposing them to the threats of order and disorder as they attempt to integrate Heracles’ pure excess into the oikonomia of Trachis. This process ultimately reveals the futility of attempts to analyze the play in terms of its dichotomies: female-male, oikos-polis, concealed-revealed, etc. The circulation of the robe in its box charts a path for understanding the play in terms that defy dichotomization by locating the play’s exchanges along intersecting modes of valuation. In the conclusion, I widen the perspective of this methodology again, turning to the instrumentalization of bodies in Sophocles’ Theban plays. I raise questions about how meaning, use, value, and power come to be confused via onstage exchanges, and I gesture towards possible future avenues of inquiry that might account for the trouble with bodies that Ajax raises.