- schemas,
- stereotype,
- silence,
- conceptual metaphor
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Abstract
In this paper I offer a new reading of the Iole scene in Sophocles’ "Women of Trachis". Drawing on schema theory and on embodied cognition, I interpret the scene as a four-stage narrative about Deianira’s cognitive appropriation of Iole from (1) schema-activation to (2) schema reinforcement to (3) schemachallenge to (4) schema-preservation. I argue that stages (1) and (2) read Iole as an instantiation of a generic social stereotype, while stages (3) and (4) read her as a literary trope. Both ‘readings’ assimilate her silence into familiar cognitive categories and thereby misread it.