Greek Tragedy XV: Sophocles’s Philoctetes, or You Were Expecting Danny DeVito?

Posted byTriumvir ClioPosted inGreek Tragedy, The Greeks

If your only experience of Philoctetes is the character in Disney’s Hercules, prepare for a big surprise.

Discussion Prompts
  1. How can we use this play to discuss disability rights today?
  2. This play is not about race, but how can we use this play to discuss race today?
  3. If you were directing this play today, how would you cast it? Why?
  4. Lemnos was not an uninhabited island. Other myths even talk about the people who lived there. So why do you think Sophocles makes it so barren and lonely?
  5. Do you think Fate plays a role in this story? Why or why not?
  6. What are your thoughts on Odysseus? Neoptolemus? Philoctetes?
  7. If you were directing this play today, how would you handle the deus ex machina that allows the story to conclude?

Published by Triumvir Clio

I have a BA in History and Classical Civilization from Loyola University Chicago and an MPH from Western Michigan University. I've been a geometry teacher, a religion teacher, a writing tutor. I'm a writer, a knitter, a dancer, a singer, an actor. And, yes, for fun I like to reread everything that was assigned while getting my classics degree.

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