The journey of Andromache as a female hero and her description in painting

Abstract

Myths, tales and legends are sources that can shed light on historical facts, contain social, cultural, symbolic, psychological and many other meanings and transmit this information from generation to generation. In these narratives, the hero is the person at the center of the action, who takes action and goes on adventures.

In line with the established values ​​of the patriarchal social structure throughout the ages; these heroes, who went on adventures and survived various difficulties and achieved victory, have always remained in our minds as masculine figures. However, mythology also includes the heroic struggle and journey of many female characters, the details of which are unknown. In these myths, it is possible to see the view of the male world, based on the patriarchal social structure, towards women and the ideal it has built on women's lives.

In this context, Andromache, whose name and story are mentioned in the works of many poets from Homer to Euripides, from Vergilius to Racine, would be a suitable example. Her story begins in the city of Thebes, where she was the princess, and went to Troy as a bride. Achilles' murder of her family, Hector's death, the fall of Troy and the murder of their son Astyanax are only a part of her ordeal. Her journey continues as a slave to the son of the man who killed her husband. Andromache appears once again in Vergilius' Aeneas epic. When Neoptolemos was killed, she married Helenos, another Trojan prince, and became the queen of Epirus under her husband's rule. Despite all these harsh winds that determine the direction of her life, Andromache is depicted as an astute, honorable, virtuous, brave and conscious woman in all these works and is glorified as a heroine. When we look at how gender roles are shaped in our age in the light of examples from the past, it can be thought that the roles assigned to Andromache correspond to the ideal woman determined according to the masculine perspective.

The depiction of the character Andromache in the literary works of the great poets seems to be shaped by the thoughts of the author as well as revealing the perspective of the age they lived in. On the other hand, the story of Andromache, as a female hero who deeply affected the history of art and found a place in epics; it is shown from the perspective of the masculine world, with depictions almost all of which are painted by male artists.

In this study, Andromache is proposed as a heroic figure and her story, overshadowed by the fame of male heroes, is investigated. Among the examples in painting, the paintings in which Andromache is included were scanned and the way the subject was handled in the works found was examined.