-
The Myth of Resilience: Ajax Undressed
- Mosaic: an interdisciplinary critical journal
- Mosaic, an interdisciplinary critical journal
- Volume 52, Number 4, December 2019
- pp. 109-125
- 10.1353/mos.2019.0041
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
In trauma studies, resilience refers to one's ability to confront, work through, and rise above traumatic experiences. Sophocles encourages us to rethink our admiration for such heroic efforts. In Sophocles's Ajax, it isn't modern conceptions of resilience, but a stripped-down compassion that helps sheathe our most destructive thoughts.