Senior Thesis, Department of Classics
In this paper, I investigate the historical stepmother in the context of marriage, step-motherhood, citizenship, and inheritance law, and outline the “hostile stepmother” stereotype, drawing on Watson’s Ancient Stepmothers, as well as the “specter of the stepmother”. I then explore examples in Euripides, connecting the historical context to the literary representations of the hostile stepmother. Theatre is a way for both playwright and audience to grapple with the political issues of the day. Euripides’ gives us examples of the specter of the stepmother in Alcestis and Medea, hostile stepmothers in Andromache and Phrixus, the lustful stepmother in Hippolytus, and a combination in Ion, where mistaken identity leads Creusa to take on the role of the hostile stepmother towards her own child. These plays also feature nothoi and themes of otherness and foreignness in conjunction with the stepmothers. I conclude by connecting these literary phenomena to issues of citizenship and identity in classical Athens.