Autism Vox

Greek Myths and Real Tragedies

by Kristina Chew, PhD on August 9th, 2006

A mother kills her two young sons.

A mother and her sister kill her young son and serve his remains to his father.

A father agrees to have his daughter sacrificed.

These are not true stories; they are stories out of Greek mythology retold in ancient Greek literature and especially Greek tragedy: Medea in the tragedy by Euripides, Philomela and Procne in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Greek leader Agamemnon (in another Euripidean tragedy, Iphigenia in Aulis).

Parents who kill their children is a tough and terrible topic to get one’s mind around, a topic that (as my college students have been known to say) is something “those ancient Greeks write plays about.” Being a Classics professor, I have found myself talking with some regularity about infanticide, filicide (Medea, Philomela), matricide (Agamemnon’s son Orestes kills his mother, Klytemnestra), patricide (Oedipus kills his father Laertes without knowing he is his father), and fratricide (Oedipus’ sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, kill each other). Shaking their heads, my students are glad to note that “it’s just a myth,” “it’s part of the story.”

In the past few months, I have found myself reading about “parents killing their children” not in Greek tragedy but in the news: Dr. Karen McCarron, who allegedly killed her 3-year-old daughter, Katherine. William Lash III who allegedly killed his son, William Lash IV. These stories are awful to read about; instead of tragedy by ancient Greek dramatists, these are real tragedies involving real people.

Also recently, some autism parents have stated publicly that life with an autistic child is so terrible that they have contemplated killing their children, or thought a “hidden, dark thought,” that they sometimes hoped their child might walk into the pond by their house and end his suffering. It seems that saying that one has thought about killing one’s child has become a sort of “autism parent badge of courage”—a sign of one’s undying love and devotion to one’s child in the face of so much daily tragedy—a sign of one’s being an endlessly dedicated, passionate parent.

I do note that, while parents have made such statements, most have not actually done what they have talked about—have not killed their child. To say that one loves one’s autistic child so much that one would kill her or him is a blunt and powerful rhetorical statement that can tear at the general public’s heartstrings. Certainly the ancient Greeks and Romans knew the passions evoked in the myths of Medea, of Philomela, of Agamemnon and the House of Atreus. These figures are tragic and while their stories evoke some very real emotions, they are not real—but what happened to Katherine McCarron and William Lash IV and to their families is real, and I hope we do not get so caught up in our rhetoric of “the awfulness of autism” that we forget the difference between Greek myth and real tragedy.

Share This

Related Stories

Where the real tragedy is
Autism Myths: Let the Debunking Begin
Know Your Autism
Autism Myths and the Media
Who Knows Best?: Physicians and Patients, Mythology and History

POSTED IN: Classics, Crime, Parenting, Stereotypes