An Inhabitant of Erebos

Ajax's Subversive "nekro-nóstos"

David, Hetrick

Lucida intervalla

46

14

32

1450-6645

http://emu.f.bg.ac.rs/lucidaintervalla/issues/46(2017).pdf

2017

The Greek hero Ajax does not achieve a traditional homecoming. In Sophokles’ Ajax, Ajax’s suicide precludes his physical return, but he achieves νόστος to a new home: Hades. The raging Ajax slaughters captured animals instead of the Greek chieftains, and Ajax exits and enters his hut, which is portrayed as a temporary “house.” Ajax’s νόστος to this hut-home brings pollution, but eventually mental clarity. Physical νόστος precipitates a mental νόστος from madness to sanity. Utterly shamed and afraid of his father’s reaction, Ajax eventually implores the nether darkness to accept him as its “inhabitant,” radically redefining the idea of “home.”

Ajax, Greek tragedy, homecoming, nostos, Sophokles