The Necessity of Sacrifice: Female Martyrdom and the Heroic Figure
Humanities
Lit 190A The Figure of the Hero
This paper focuses on the treatment of the female martyr in three texts: Antigone, Il Trovatore, and The Rape of Lucrece. The paper attempts to answer why and how valorous women are given the title of martyr, and how that title is both one of respect and one that restricts the women it describes. I trace the difference in interpretation between the sacrifice of the hero and that of the martyr, relating it back to the concept of active vs passive participation in the plot. Using this distinction, I address the question of whether or not these women can be considered as having agency in a plot where they are not the narrative drivers. To do this, I consider the theory of action along with various literary treatments on the use of the woman's body, especially in pre-modern texts.
