Classical Greek and Roman myths of murder, taking place within families, portray the cultural significance of maintaining a peaceful household and family relationships in their respective eras. Clytemnestra’s portrayal in both Aeschylus’s Agamemnon and Euripides’ Electra demonstrate the supposed danger of a woman’s transgression from her traditional role as a wife, and conversely the danger of men acting out of their expected roles through the character Aegisthus. Furthermore, both Electra’s Clytemnestra and Medea’s Medea demonstrate a betrayal of their roles as mothers, emphasising the importance of a mother’s nurturing attitude in the ancient perspective, while Aeschylus’s The Choephori transparently interprets betrayal in marriage as an inevitably violent crime. Finally, it is worth considering the supernatural element in all of these classic myths of murder, and that this is what ultimately supports their supposed inevitability.
The personal nature of violence in
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The audience are told to ”Learn truth from sad Althaea” (Aeschylus, The Choephori, 596) and therefore are presented with these myths of murder clearly as allegorical warnings. This direct speech, including the description of Althaea as “sad” (Aeschylus, The Choephori, 596) gives the impression as being directed to women, who may feel more naturally predisposed to sympathising with Althaea due to her gender, and that they ought not to act like her, and respect the family hierarchy, lest they too be miserable. The final story, called the “third and worst/ where marriage harbours hate” (Aeschylus, The Choephori, 623-4) is exemplifying that marriage is a tremendously important bond in these ancient societies. The fact that a hateful marriage would be described as such a terrible fate, almost portrayed as a horror story, shows how important this idea of family harmony was to both the author and the intended
Structural violence is differentiated from direct violence both in terms of etiology and nature. D...
Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” does a marvelous job of highlighting the violent nature of mankind. The underlying cause of this violent nature can be analyzed from three perspectives, the first being where the occurrence of violence takes place, the second man’s need to be led and the way their leader leads them, and lastly whether violence is truly an innate and inherent characteristic in man.
Gender is made explicit as a theme throughout the Oresteia through a series of male-female conflicts and incorrectly gendered characters dominated by the figure of Clytemnestra, a woman out of place. This opposition of gender then engenders all the other oppositions of the trilogy; conflicts of oikos and polis, chthonic and Olympian, old and young can be assigned to female and male spheres respectively. In this essay I will look at how the polis examines itself in terms of gender by focusing on the Eumenides' exploration of the myth of matriarchy, issues of the conflict between oikos and polis and the use of speech within the polis. I will then look at how these themes are brought together in the trial and the play provides an image of resolution. Many of these issues are set up in the opening speech of the priestess Pythia as already resolved and are then reconfirmed by the trial itself and closing images order.
Yet, despite the fact that no two women in this epic are alike, each—through her vices or virtues—helps to delineate the role of the ideal woman. Below, we will show the importance of Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, Clytaemestra, and Penelope in terms of the movement of the narrative and in defining social roles for the Ancient Greeks. Before we delve into the traits of individual characters, it is important to understand certain assumptions about women that prevailed in the Homeric Age. By modern standards, the Ancient Greeks would be considered a rabidly misogynistic culture. Indeed, the notoriously sour Boetian playwright Hesiod-- who wrote about fifty years before Homer-- proclaimed "Zeus who thunders on high made women to be evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil (Theogony 600).
“According to some researchers, our tendency to use violence comes from the fear of death and the need of boosting our self confidence by using its defense mechanism.” This fact stated “onedio.co” may simply be a hoax but surprisingly it is not. The overuse of violence encourages corruption in family and doesn’t settle or divert the dilemma. As a result of violence, it can cause lasting severe damage to close relationships with your loved ones. To illustrate my point, violence is used in several ways to express anger, but it doesn’t particularly solve anything.
The thesis of the Oresteia proves to be the sacrifice of Iphigenia, for it is with the death of a woman that the tables of the curse on the house of Atreus start to unfold. The sacrifice of Iphigenia becomes the start of the continued curse within this particular generation of the house of Atreus. Agamemnon, a misogynist, did not value the life of his innocent daughter over the spoils of men. It is significant that an innocent woman, ready for marriage, an act that brings together two households, was not married but instead murdered. Her sacrifice shows a separation between men and women along with failure within the household.
Euripides, one of Ancient Greece’s most famous playwrights, could be considered as one of the earliest supporters of women’s rights. With plays such as Alcestis and Medea, he clearly puts an emphasis on the condition of women, and even integrates them in the Chorus of the latter play, a feat that was not often done in Ancient Greece. Throughout the years, it has been argued that the two central characters in each of those plays offer conflicting representations of women in those times, and I can safely say that I agree with that argument. I will expand on my view by pointing out an important similarity between Alcestis and Medea, followed by a key difference, and will finish it off by contrasting them with the Ancient Greek depiction of an “ideal woman.”
The story of Medea is a tragic betrayal of love and heartache worse than any other in Greek Mythology. This is due to the fact that Medea had no mercy for the lives of her children, brother or the new wife of her former love. Medea is a powerful sorceress and daughter of a king. Medea falls in love with the son of Aison, Jason, not knowing of the heartache that lies ahead.
Orestes' matricide has been presented in various ways by the poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in each of their plays. I have observed the multitude of contrasting devices in each of the plays. Aeschylus has the most unique play of the three, as he does not include Orestes' sister, Electra, in the matricide directly. Instead of having Electra as the one to convince Orestes to commit the deed, as we see in Sophocles and Euripides, we see the character Pylades take on that role. Sophocles involves Electra more in his play "Electra" but she is still not directly associated with the murder.
Betrayal has been a problem for mankind for as long as mankind has existed, but what exactly is betrayal? Many authors, psychologists, and philosophers alike have tried to answer that very question with no success. Certain types of betrayal can be beneficial, but more often than not betrayal causes an unfortunate series of events to follow it. One of the greatest examples of this comes from Greek Mythology and the story of Jason and Medea. Jason and Medea lived together as a married couple and had children together, Jason then betrayed Medea by throwing her aside and claiming they were never married. As revenge Medea then killed their children and fled. There are several different types of betrayal. There is betrayal of/by society or the exectutives of the country, betrayal of/by those close to you, and betrayal of/by yourself.
It is within the very nature of humans to isolate the polarised forces of reason and passion, yet within his Greek tragedy Medea, Euripides demonstrates the “fatal results” of possessing a predisposition for either frame of mind. Indeed, the antagonistic relationship between Medea and society best contextualises the gripping antithesis between maintaining an acceptable outward demeanour and laying bare our inner impulses respectively, however, at its core, this rupture is also self evident on an intrapersonal level as observed in Medea’s character. In presenting the consequences of the oppressive culture of Greek society, as well as the extent of destruction entailed with Medea’s unchecked emotions that propel her cause for revenge, Euripides seems to suggest that we should nurture our passion, but in doing so, we should also rein over them with reason, notable in the Nurse’s character. The nature of human psychology is one that manifests itself in binary oppositions, however it is not contrived in as such a way that forbids us from travelling the “middle way”.
Despite the male dominant society of Ancient Greece, the women in Sophocles’ play Antigone all express capabilities of powerful influence and each individually possess unique characteristics, showing both similarities and contrasts. The women in the play are a pivotal aspect that keeps the plot moving and ultimately leads to the catharsis of this tragedy. Beginning from the argument between Antigone and Ismene to Eurydice’s suicide, a male takes his own life and another loses everything he had all as a result of the acts these women part take in. The women all put their own family members above all else, but the way they go about showing that cherishment separates them amongst many other things.
Medea and Lysistrata are two Greek literatures that depict the power which women are driven to achieve in an aim to defy gender inequality. In The Medea, Medea is battling against her husband Jason whom she hates. On the other hand, in Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the protagonist Lysistrata plotted to convince and organize the female gender to protest against the stubbornness of men. In terms of defining the purpose of these two literatures, it is apparent that Euripedes and Aristophanes created characters that demonstrate resistance against the domination of men in the society.
Women were often subjects of intense focus in ancient literary works. In Sarah Pomeroy’s introduction of her text Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, she writes, “Women pervade nearly every genre of classical literature, yet often the bias of the author distorts the information” (x). It is evident in literature that the social roles of women were more restricted than the roles of men. And since the majority of early literature was written by men, misogyny tends to taint much of it. The female characters are usually given negative traits of deception, temptation, selfishness, and seduction. Women were controlled, contained, and exploited. In early literature, women are seen as objects of possession, forces deadly to men, cunning, passive, shameful, and often less honorable than men. Literature reflects the societal beliefs and attitudes of an era and the consistency of these beliefs and attitudes toward women and the roles women play has endured through the centuries in literature. Women begin at a disadvantage according to these societal definitions. In a world run by competing men, women were viewed as property—prizes of contests, booty of battle and the more power men had over these possessions the more prestigious the man. When reading ancient literature one finds that women are often not only prizes, but they were responsible for luring or seducing men into damnation by using their feminine traits.