''Cassandra'' () is a 1983 novel by the German author

Christa Wolf Christa Wolf (; Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011) was a German novelist and essayist. She is considered one of the most important writers to emerge from the former East Germany.Michael Jarrell has adapted the novel for speaker and instrumental ensemble, and his piece has been performed frequently.

Plot

Cassandra Cassandra or Kassandra (; , , sometimes referred to as Alexandra; ) in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecy, prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is e ...

's narrative begins by describing her youth, when she was

Priam In Greek mythology, Priam (; , ) was the legendary and last king of Troy during the Trojan War. He was the son of Laomedon. His many children included notable characters such as Hector, Paris, and Cassandra. Etymology Most scholars take the e ...

's favorite daughter and loved to sit with him as he discussed politics and matters of state. Her relationship with her mother, Hecuba, however, was never as intimate, since Hecuba recognized Cassandra's independence. At times their interactions are tense or even cold, notably when Hecuba does not sympathize with Cassandra's fear of the god

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

's gift of prophecy or her reluctance to accept his love. When she ultimately refuses him, he curses her so that no one will believe what she prophesies. When Cassandra is presented among the city's virgins for deflowering, she is chosen by

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas ( , ; from ) was a Troy, Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus (mythology), Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy ...

, who makes love to her only later. Nonetheless, she falls in love with him, and is devoted to him despite her liaisons with others, including Panthous — indeed, she imagines Aeneas whenever she is with anyone else. It is Aeneas' father Anchises who tells Cassandra of the mission to bring Hesione, Priam's sister who was taken as a prize by Telamon during the first Trojan War, back from

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

. Not only do the Trojans fail to secure Hesione, they also lose the seer Calchas during the voyage, who later aids the Greeks during the war. When

Menelaus In Greek mythology, Menelaus (; ) was a Greek king of Mycenaean (pre- Dorian) Sparta. According to the ''Iliad'', the Trojan war began as a result of Menelaus's wife, Helen, fleeing to Troy with the Trojan prince Paris. Menelaus was a central ...

visits Troy to offer a

sacrifice Sacrifice is an act or offering made to a deity. A sacrifice can serve as propitiation, or a sacrifice can be an offering of praise and thanksgiving. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Gree ...

, he rebukes the impertinence of Cassandra's brother

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, who has recently returned to Troy and been reclaimed as Priam and Hecuba's son, though as a child he was abandoned because of a prophecy. His words provoke Paris, who insists that he will travel to Sparta, and if Hesione is not returned to him, he will take Helen. The tension increases when Cassandra experiences a sort of fit and collapses, having foreseen the war and fall of Troy. By the time she recovers, Paris has sailed to Sparta and returned, bringing Helen, who wears a

veil A veil is an article of clothing or hanging cloth that is intended to cover some part of the human head, head or face, or an object of some significance. Veiling has a long history in European, Asian, and African societies. The practice has be ...

. Cassandra soon begins to suspect—but does not want to believe—that Helen is not in Troy, after all. No one is permitted to see her, and Cassandra has seen Paris' former wife Oenone leaving his room. However, she is unable to accept that Troy—that her father—would continue to prepare for a war if its premise were false. When Paris finally tells her explicitly what she already knows, she protests to her father, but he rejects her plea to negotiate peace and orders her to be silent. Thus Cassandra's traditional role—as the seeress who tells the truth but is not believed—is reinterpreted. She knows the truth, but Priam knows it too; she cannot persuade anyone of the truth, but only because she is forbidden to speak of it. Although she feels miserable, she still loves and trusts Priam and cannot betray his secret. Although Priam's political motives ostensibly drive Troy to war, the palace guard Eumelos is the true force behind the conflict. He manipulates Priam and the public until they believe the war is necessary and forget that the stakes are nothing but Helen. Gradually he increases the pressure on the Trojan population, including Cassandra. Anchises explains that Eumelos, by convincing the Trojans that the Greeks were enemies and inciting them to fight, made his own military state necessary and was thus able to rise to power. One of Eumelos' guards, Andron, becomes Polyxena's lover, but when

Achilles In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus () was a hero of the Trojan War who was known as being the greatest of all the Greek warriors. The central character in Homer's ''Iliad'', he was the son of the Nereids, Nereid Thetis and Peleus, ...

demands her in exchange for

Hector In Greek mythology, Hector (; , ) was a Trojan prince, a hero and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. He is a major character in Homer's ''Iliad'', where he leads the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, killing c ...

's body, Andron does not object—rather, he offers her to Achilles without remorse. Later Eumelos plans to lure Achilles into a trap by stationing Polyxena in the temple. For Polyxena's sake Cassandra refuses to comply with his scheme, threatening to reveal it. Priam promptly has her imprisoned in the heroes' graveyard. Eumelos executes his plan after all, and Achilles is killed, requesting as he dies that

Odysseus In Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, Odysseus ( ; , ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( , ; ), is a legendary Greeks, Greek king of Homeric Ithaca, Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, epic poem, the ''Odyssey''. Od ...

sacrifice Polyxena at his grave for her betrayal. Later when the Greeks come to take her away, Polyxena asks Cassandra to kill her, but Cassandra has discarded her dagger and cannot spare her sister. When the defeat is imminent, Cassandra meets Aeneas for the last time, and he asks her to leave Troy with him. She refuses because she knows that he will be forced to become a hero, and she cannot love a hero.

Themes

Cassandra's experience during the Trojan War parallels Christa Wolf's personal experience as a citizen of

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

: during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, a

police state A police state describes a state whose government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exec ...

much like Eumelos' Troy. Wolf, too, was familiar with

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...

; in fact, ''Cassandra'' was censored when it was initially published. The novel, besides criticizing repression, emphasizes issues of

marginalization Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. In the EU context, the Euro ...

as well. Cassandra is of course a marginalized figure because of her role as seeress, but Wolf focuses more on her role as a woman. It is not until Cassandra lives in a community with other women, literally at the margin of the city, that she identifies with a group and includes herself in it by the pronoun "we." ''Cassandra'' is certainly interesting as a reinterpretation of history and literature by an otherwise rather obscure character. However, the novel is truly compelling because Cassandra's individual character and her individual voice are symbolic of all female characters and their voices that have been underrepresented by past writers.

is narrated from the perspective of Cassandra, seeress and daughter of King Priam of

Troy Troy (/; ; ) or Ilion (; ) was an ancient city located in present-day Hisarlik, Turkey. It is best known as the setting for the Greek mythology, Greek myth of the Trojan War. The archaeological site is open to the public as a tourist destina ...

. Not only is this representation of Cassandra distinct from those in classical worksFor example, Homer's ''Iliad'', Virgil's ''Aeneid'', Euripides' ''Trojan Women'' and ''Hecuba'', and Aeschylus' ''Agamemnon'', several of which merely feature her, and most of which present her as mad because of her unique narrative voice, but also this version of the story of the

Trojan War The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mytho ...

, through its contradiction or reversal of multiple legends that are traditionally associated with the War. Cassandra's narration, which is presented as an internal monologue in stream-of-consciousness style, begins on Agamemnon's ship to Mycenae, where—as Cassandra knows—she will soon be murdered by Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra. As she prepares to face her death, she is overwhelmed by emotions, and both to distract herself from and to make sense of them, she occupies her thoughts with reflections on the past. Throughout the novel Cassandra spends a good deal of time in introspection, examining and even critiquing her personality, her perspective, and her motives as she was growing up in Troy. She particularly regrets her naiveté, and more than anything her pride. Although it becomes clear that she was ultimately powerless to oppose the political forces supporting the war and thus to prevent the disaster at Troy, she nonetheless feels that she is to blame—and if only indirectly for the war, then quite directly for her sister Polyxena's death. She is also remorseful that her final disagreement with Aeneas ended on an angry note, even though she thinks Aeneas—on a rational level—understood her motives. As Cassandra reminisces about Troy, her complex relationships with Aeneas and Polyxena—relationships without precedent in the classical canon—serve not only to contextualize her experience of the Trojan War within the broader tradition, but also to humanize her, as do her interactions with Priam, Aeneas' father Anchises, and Panthous, the Greek priest. Aeneas, though his presence both in Troy and in the novel is scarce, is perhaps the most significant of these, and in several of the brief moments when Cassandra's thoughts return to the present, they are addressed to him. Her narrative finally seems to represent Cassandra's desperate effort to justify, both to Aeneas and to herself, her fate.

References

Edition

Wolf, Christa. ''Cassandra.'' Transl. Jan van Heurck. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cassandra (Novel) 1983 German novels East German novels Novels by Christa Wolf Novels set in ancient Troy Novels set during the Trojan War German historical novels Works based on Agamemnon (Aeschylus play) Novels based on the Iliad Cassandra Priam Greek and Roman deities in fiction Apollo Cultural depictions of Helen of Troy Fiction about father–daughter relationships Cultural depictions of Achilles Odysseus Censored books

Plot

Themes

See also

References

Edition