Sophocles' Ajax

Ajax, by Sophocles

Background and Preliminaries

Produced ca. 460-440 BC, perhaps the earliest of the surviving plays of Sophocles

much earlier than the Philoctetes: compare the two very different characterizations of Odysseus
note how extraordinary it is that Sophocles here make a hero out of a suicide (!), just as in Philoctetes, he makes a hero out of a deserted and lonely cripple

oddities:

S. brings an Olympian deity onto stage (only in the use of the deus ex machina [Heracles] at the end of the Philoctetes does S. otherwise use a deity directly among the surviving plays)
Death on stage (!): elsewhere in ancient tragedy, killings always take place off stage

The Contest over the armor of Achilles

After Achilles dies, Agamemnon promises his armor to the bravest of the Greeks

To decide, judges are appointed
Odysseus, according to Ajax's version of events, bribes or somehow otherwise unjustly influences the judges
Odysseus therefore wins the armor
In Ajax's view, rightly, Achilles regarded Ajax as the bravest hero next to himself; thus he feels that he deserved the armor

What happens next has at least two versions

According to the great poet Pindar, Ajax is despondent at the betrayal, and kills himself
According to others, and this is the version followed by Sophocles, Ajax decides to kill the Greek leaders but goes mad (by the intervention of Athena), and slaughters the flock instead; then in humiliation he kills himself

The importance of timê (pronounced tee-may) in the warrior society

Time = "honor": but for a Greek warrior in the Homeric tradition this sense of honor is entirely dependent on what others in the warrior community think of you
a warrior in the Homeric tradition does not, typically, have an inner sense of self-worth that is independent of the esteem in the community
Ajax is in Greek poetry an example of the typical Greek warrior
Thus when Ajax faces not only a lack of esteem, but hostility and --worse-- mockery by the warrior community, this is not simply a loss of face, but is very directly a loss of all honor: thus a loss of self-esteem as well as of esteem

The Construction of the Sophoclean Hero (again!)

Note esp. that a Hero in Sophocles is not at all necessarily someone you like

e.g. Ajax's rather detestable treatment of women
e.g. Ajax's fierce but also vicious desire to murder the kings Menelaus & Agamemnon for the slight against his time in the business of the armor
e.g. Ajax's exceedingly vicious desire in the opening scene not only to kill Odysseus, but to torture him

But the Hero is someone who has great stature and a certain nobility

Ajax dominates the play, and towers over the other characters

prospectively: before he enters
actually: in his person
afterwards: in his death

Even though he is only "on stage" for a very limited period, he seems to be always on stage, always at the center of our attention: this marks his stature as a hero

His #1 enemy, Odysseus, at the end of the play declares Ajax's nobility (1355): and we as viewers can hardly demure

The heroic code of behavior: Do Well to your Friends, Do Ill to your Enemies

(tous men philous eu poiein, tous d' ekhthrous kakôs)

A natural code of behavior, and one that dominates human action throughout history, including today

the ideals of Plato's Republic, or of Christianity, are a later development
and frankly remain an ideal rather than a reality for most peoples

Clearly this code is ascribed to by Ajax, but also by Athena (!)

help your friends: Athena helps Odysseus, so much so that Odysseus feels pity and some horror
treat your enemies ill: just as Ajax thinks he is torturing Odysseus as he whips the ram, so Athena tortures Ajax with the humiliation of his madness, and the public exposure to this degradation: note how she mocks Ajax as she shows off her handiwork to Odysseus (again, to Od's horror!)
if you buy into this code of behavior, Athena's actions are perfectly just: but they show no signs of human pity! Like Athena, Ajax the fierce warrior likewise at first shows no pity

The justiceof this old code remains perhaps unquestioned
But, whatever you think of that, the play clearly focuses our attention on the fact that as humans we should recognize nobility even in our enemies, that is, that we, like Odysseus, should pity
The play then can be seen as an exploration of the problematics of this old heroic code
Odysseus then represents a movement beyond the code, away from fierce blind vindictiveness and towards a civilizing pity for human suffering
We thus understand one purpose, as it were, for human suffering: for suffering can be ennobling for mankind, inasmuch as it sparks the human pity that draws us beyond this animal-like code of an eye-for-an-eye

Ajax's central speech: A speech of recantation or of deception?

The central speech of the play, at 644ff, has inspired a scholarly debate that continues

Speech as recantation:

Bowra (e.g.): Ajax, as the type of Achilles, the man of action who speaks in a straightforward manner, cannot deceive (good point!)
the speech must then be taken at face value: as a recantation of his stubbornness, an assertion of his willingness to submit to authority, and his determination to live
But a problem: He must then later, offstage, change his mind and despair (nothing in the play supports this!)

Speech as deliberate deception (of chorus and Tecmessa)

Tecmessa later complains of his deception
His death then is prepared for by the speech, which we are supposed to see as a deception

note the many images of darkness and death: a disguised assertion of his will to die

But a problem: why would he feel the need to deceive his wife and the chorus? Immediately before he has already announced his decision to commit suicide and has roughly dismissed his wife's objections-- why would he fear her knowledge now if he didn't fear it then??

Knox: Ajax changes his mind within the course of the speec

Sililoquy: note how, contrary to the conventions of ancient tragedy, he does not address anyone at the beginning of his speech: were he speaking to Tecmessa or the chorus, he would address them explicitly: he must then be talking to himself

thus Ajax is not deceiving, or informing, anyone: he is talking to himself, trying to sort things out, since he has at the moment a severe crisis in his understanding of the moral basis on which he lives (see previous paragraph on the heroic code!)
the high lyricism of the speech remains surprising: not typical of the Ajax we know elsewhere! Is this our one true glimpse into the inner mind of the hero?

at 677ff, Ajax expresses then both revelation and despair, and decides that he really must kill himself: when he turns at 683 to address his wife, he has cast off his earlier doubts and has made his decision to go through with the act

Ajax versus Odysseus: independent hero & man of action versus community hero & man of persuasion

Ajax: the quintessential man of action, in the mode of Achilles

a "big ox" who (aside from the central sililoquy) is a man of few words, and those direct, straightforward
a man of action
alone: he stands by himself, the self-reliant, independent hero
but note how his aloneness translates into impiety towards Athena

Impiety #1: 765ff: Ajax boasts to his father that he doesn't need the gods' help to win his "prize of fame"
Impiety #2: 773ff: When Athena comes to help Ajax in the battle, he tells her to go help someone else: "for where I bide, no enemy will break through"

clearly, the self-reliant man of action can be too self-reliant, too dependent on his own actions: and thus fall into hubris, that state wherein a man forgets his limitations, forgets that as a mortal he needs the help of the gods

Odysseus: the quintessential "wily man" who has learned to use persuasion rather than force to obtain many of his objectives

but he not only persuades, but takes direction from the goddess: Od. to Athena at 35f: "In all things I am steered by your hand, as in the past so in the future"
a man who is able to persuade: but in this play, his persuasion takes an evil form, for he persuades the judges to give him the arms of Achilles contrary to what seems right (and, if Ajax is to be believed, Odysseus used wrongful means of persuasion)
a community hero: note that the judges of Achilles' armor are a new kind of authority, to be opposed to the authority of the individual hero-king: and that this type of communal authority is, however, subject to persuasion, of both the good and the bad kind

The judgement of the arms, and its aftermath: wrongful either way

Ajax clearly not in the right to want to kill Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Odysseus for losing the decision: this is the consequence of the old authority of the independent hero
But Odysseus is clearly also not in the right: even he agrees that Ajax should have gotten the arms, 1339, and if Ajax is right Odysseus may have used wrongful means of persuasion: clearly a consequence of an authority that depends on persuasion

Note that persuasion, in the context of community authority --such as the authority that now rules the Athenian democracy! -- is more forceful that the power of the hero

The play seems to explore then the problematics of the new, communal authority, as well as the problematics of the old, hero authority: there are problems either way!

People and places to know:

Ajax

Tecmessa, Ajax's wife

Teucer, Ajax's half-brother

Odysseus, as Sophocles depicts him (here, as opposed to in the Philoctetes)

Athena, as depicted here

Agamemnon, as depicted here