The Fragile Line Between Art and Violence in Glorious Exploits

Introduction: A Theatre Amidst Ruins

In Glorious Exploits, Ferdia Lennon builds a world where the beauty of classical Greek tragedy is set directly against the aftermath of a genocidal war. The novel’s central thematic claim is that art can offer a fragile alternative to violence, but it cannot fully escape the brutality that surrounds it – and when real blood spills into the performance, the stage becomes no different from the battlefield. The epigraphs from Euripides’ The Bacchae and Trojan Women (Chapter 1) establish this tension from the outset: madness can lead to greatness, and hope persists even in death. Yet the story’s events repeatedly show that the controlled suffering of theatre is vulnerable to invasion by the uncontrolled suffering of war.

Art as an Act of Survival in the Quarry

The first clear expression of art versus violence occurs when Lampo and Gelon bring water, wine, and food to the quarry where defeated Athenians are imprisoned. They offer sustenance only to those who can recite lines of Euripides (Chapter 1). This exchange sets up art as a means of preserving life and dignity in a space designed for death. The quarry itself is described as “a vast amphitheatre” – a natural arena that could host either execution or performance. By staging Medea with Athenian prisoners, Gelon attempts to transform a site of violence into a site of cultural creation. The prisoners’ ability to perform, despite their chains and starvation, suggests that art can momentarily transcend the facts of war.

However, even in this early stage, violence lurks. Lampo rescues Paches from Biton, who wants to kill him. Biton embodies the raw, personal grievance that cannot be soothed by poetry. His son was killed by Athenians, and he sees the prisoners only as enemies. The artistic project begins by fending off an immediate threat, foreshadowing that the play cannot exist in a vacuum.

The Rehearsal: Violence Interrupts Artistic Space

During a rehearsal, Biton storms into the quarry upon seeing children performing alongside the prisoners (Chapter 15). He is outraged that Syracusan children are “feeding their families’ killers.” Biton grabs Lampo, lifts him by the throat, and threatens to “break your fucking skull.” This moment shows that the personal trauma of war has not healed; Biton’s grief erupts into the rehearsal space, shattering the illusion that art can neatly separate itself from the past.

The children themselves are caught between play and reality. They play war with bones of dead Athenians (Chapter 5) and later agree to act the murder of Astyanax in Trojan Women. Their involvement blurs the line between imaginative reenactment and genuine harm. Dares stands between Biton and Gelon, a brave act that momentarily stops the violence – but only postpones it.

The Final Performance: When the Stage Becomes a Battlefield

The climax arrives during the performance of Trojan Women. Gelon insists on a real child (Strabo) playing Astyanax, who will be “pushed off a rock” in a staged execution (Chapter 22). The audience is stunned; for a moment, the boundary between theatre and reality dissolves. Then, as Numa as Hecuba delivers her final lament, Biton walks onto the stage and clubs Numa to death. The Greek chorus is attacked, and the quarry becomes a scene of real murder.

This is the novel’s clearest statement: no matter how powerful the art, real violence can invade and destroy it. The audience watches but does not intervene – a reflection that spectacle often paralyzes even when tragedy becomes literal. The theatrical masks, symbols of performed identity, are shattered along with Numa’s skull. The blood on armour that earlier was faked for profit (Gelon cutting his arm to stain the armour for sale) now becomes a real, visceral stain.

Character and Symbol Connections

The main characters represent different positions on the art-violence spectrum. Gelon believes art can redeem anything; he cuts himself to make armour more saleable so he can fund the production, literally bleeding for his vision. Lampo is more skeptical but loyal; his old limp (a congenital defect, not a war wound) marks him as an outsider to the warrior ethos, and he tries to mediate. Numa is a professional actor who brings skill and passion but ultimately becomes a victim; his performance is so convincing that it provokes Biton’s rage. Biton is the pure embodiment of unresolved war trauma; he cannot see the prisoners as performers, only as enemies who killed his son. The theatrical masks symbolize the artificiality of the roles – but when Biton attacks, the masks become indistinguishable from real faces.

The quarry itself is both a stage and a prison. It has the shape of an amphitheatre, but it was created by cutting stone for war machines and buildings. The broken aulos (a double flute) that appears later represents the fracture of art after violence claims its practitioners. When Lampo, as an old man, sometimes plays the aulos by Gelon’s grave, it is a solitary, quiet echo of the grand performances that once were – art reduced to personal memory.

Complexity and Contradiction

The novel does not present a simple opposition between pure art and pure violence. Instead, it shows how they become entangled. Gelon’s plan to sell blood-stained armour – the spoils of war – funds the theatrical production. The children’s games with Athenian bones prepare them to participate in the play’s staged violence. And the play itself, a tragedy about a mother killing her children, is a violent story designed to elicit catharsis. Yet that catharsis is not achieved; instead, the performance triggers a real murder.

Furthermore, the prisoners willingly perform – they choose art over passivity – but their chains and hunger are never forgotten. The power of Euripides’ words keeps Paches alive even after the attack, as revealed in the final chapter set in Athens (408 BC): Paches brings the playwright a scroll of Heraclitus, proving that the quarry performance saved him. So the novel offers a paradoxical conclusion: art can sustain life in the midst of violence, but it cannot prevent that violence from eventually destroying the artists.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the novel use the quarry setting to explore the relationship between art and violence?

The quarry is a physical space that serves both as a prison for defeated enemy soldiers and as an amphitheatre for staging plays. By reimagining a site of punishment as a performance venue, the novel suggests that art can repurpose violent spaces, but the inherent brutality of the quarry (a place of forced labor and death) cannot be entirely erased. The final attack during Trojan Women proves that the quarry’s original function as a place of suffering reclaims it.

2. What role do the children play in the tension between art and violence?

The children are complicit in both realms. They play war with the bones of fallen Athenians, imitating the violence they witnessed (Chapter 5). Yet they also become actors in the play, most notably Strabo, who volunteers to “fall” as Astyanax. Their innocence is exploited; Gelon’s decision to use a real child makes the performance more powerful but also more dangerous. When violence erupts, the children cry and witness murder, permanently scarring them.

3. Why does Gelon deliberately cut himself to stain the armour he intends to sell?

Gelon’s self-wounding (Chapter 6) demonstrates his willingness to bleed for his art – both literally and metaphorically. The blood on the armour is meant to increase its market value by making it look like “authentic” war loot. This act blurs the line between real violence (his own blood) and the art of war (the sale of armour). It also foreshadows that the art project will demand real sacrifices, culminating in Numa’s death.

4. How does Biton’s attack on Numa during the play reflect the novel’s view of theatre’s limits?

Biton cannot distinguish between the actor and the enemy. His son was killed by Athenians, and when he sees Numa perform as Hecuba, he attacks the performer as if he were the enemy. This shows that theatre’s power to evoke empathy can backfire: the audience (or a member of it) may react to the fiction as if it were reality. The novel suggests that art can heighten emotions but cannot control them; Biton’s grief turns the stage into a crime scene.

5. Does the novel ultimately affirm that art can overcome violence, or does it argue the opposite?

The novel offers a dual answer. On one hand, the prisoners’ performances preserve their humanity and even reach Euripides himself (as seen in the final chapter in Athens); the play literally saves Paches’s life and moves the playwright. On the other hand, the performance of Trojan Women ends in real murder, and the artists are sacrificed. The dissonance suggests that art cannot eliminate violence, but it can provide moments of transcendence – a hope that survives even when the players do not.