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Act 5, Scene 9
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Troilus and Cressida, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
War
Love and Selfishness
Honor
Commodification of Women
Fate and Fortune
Summary
Analysis
On one side of the battlefield, the Greek kings and generals—Agamemnon, Ajax, Menelaus, Nestor, Diomedes, and others—learn that Achilles has killed Hector. Ajax mourns the death of his cousin who was, he says, as good a man as Achilles.
It’s a sign of Ajax’s humanity—but also of confusion about where, exactly, the lines in this war are drawn—that he mourns the fallen Hector, both cousin and enemy.
Active
Themes
