Philomela Dissertation Essay

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Philomela commentary This extract is situated in the very end of Emma Tennant’s story “Philomela”. We know that the main character has been emotionally hurt, and her sister physically hurt, and we expect an ending to the story that might explain the results of their pain. The character seems to only care about her sister and getting revenge for what happened to her, so it can be interesting to study revenge and the importance of love and emotions in this passage. Therefore, the first part will be about the love between the sisters, the second part about the relationship between husband, wife and son and finally, the last part on the factor of awareness and feelings of guilt. Love for her sister We know that Tereus has raped Philomela, cut out her tongue and then locked her up to prevent her from telling anyone. He then told Procne that Philomela was dead, which is what caused her depression to take over her life and lock her in her room. This emphasizes the relationship between the two sisters, and how strong it is. Procne and Philomela want to take revenge for Tereus’ actions, thus they kill Itylus, Procne and Tereus’ son and cook him for Tereus to eat. The first sentence “We lifted the boulder and came up on Itylus from behind.” (l. 1) explains the kill, and also emphasizes the fact that they do this together, using “we” not “I”, almost as if they are one being not two. The need for revenge seems to overpower rational thoughts, because the reader does not expect a mother to kill her own son to hurt her husband, because it would hurt herself too. This puts the focus on the fact that the love between Procne and Philomela is extremely strong. Even though the reader only sees the story from Procne’s point of view, the fact that Philomela also seems to think that it is okay to kill Itylus shows that not only is Procne depending on Philomela to live a happy
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