Abstract

Experience-taking has been defined as “the imaginative process of spontaneously assuming the identity of a character in a narrative and simulating that character's thoughts, emotions, behaviors, goals, and traits as if they were one's own.”1 This research examines the representation of mental and physical trauma in three ancient productions in relation to Experience Taking and healing in theatrical productions: Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes and Euripides’ The Trojan Women. Ajax was a hero in Homer’s Iliad, and his mental breakdown indicates the lingering effects of wartime despite the battles having ended. Philoctetes, another Homeric hero, is abandoned on an island after he is wounded and his fellow Greeks leave him in constant pain. The Trojan Women is a production that highlights the aftereffects of war on the survivors and captives that must suffer at the hands of their new masters, which would move an audience of conquerors. Warfare in the ancient world was an intimate and horrific event that historians such as Xenophon and Thucydides describe as brief and bloody and the many altercationsinspired authorsto write productions about the experiences of soldiers and heroes. Playwrights use the painful and evocative speech of soldiers to appeal to an audience ravaged by violence and invasion. This research will use the phenomenon of Experience Taking to further understand the correlation between tragedy and healing in the ancient and modern world.

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