Abstract
This paper explores the theme of warfare and civilian suffering in Marina Carr's Hecuba, an adaptation of Euripides' play of the same name. Both versions retell Homeric narratives of the conquest of Troy by the united tribes of Greece and the fall of the house of Priam, focusing on his wife, queen Hecuba.
However, Carr's version strongly challenges the traditional patriarchal narrative of a just war honourably waged against a culturally inferior enemy. Portraying the Greeks as blinded by hunger for power and defined by their brutality, Carr stages the heroism of the powerless, yet defiant civilians in the conquered city.
Introducing an innovative new form, the play lets overlap different perspectives of characters on the events that surrounded the fall of Troy, while drawing the audience's attention towards the universality of civilian suffering and the inexcusability of such a war. Set in a rather atemporal context, Carr's Hecuba has been tied both to the war in Syria and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, making it highly topical.
This paper analyses the various changes made to the tradition and their implications, focusing on her reformulation of the unions and partitions present in the original version. Comparing Carr's adaptation to its sources, it elaborates on her revision of the character of Hecuba and discusses its implications, before turning to an analysis of reconceptualisations of inherited us-them binaries based on gender and cultural difference.