A Modern Heroine In today’s society, women have overcome many hardships to become able to vote, able to run for public office, and even able to hold high business positions. Some people believe that such accomplishments are because of literary examples that have, over the years, lead women to believe in themselves, motivate them-selves, and stand up for themselves. In Aeschylus’ infamous Greek tragedy, The Oresteia, Clytaemestra, the leading woman, overcomes the Greek society’s slighting attitude towards women, grasping the most powerful position attain-able in Argos. Even after gaining power, Clytaemestra clutches this leadership desperately, unrelenting in her hopes to keep it forever. Although Clytaemestra uses intellect, inner strength, and self-motivation to capture power, she does it evasively and by hurting others. Therefore, Clytaemestra is not a respectable woman role model. In Agamemnon, the first book of The Oresteia, Agamemnon, Clytaemestra’s husband and the King of Argos, returns from ten years of fighting the Trojan War to find treachery reigns in Argos. Clytaemestra greets Agamemnon with a facade of exuberant tidings, claiming “a love [she] has for her husband”, while secretly she plans his murder (Oresteia 1.857). As the queen, she has a beautiful and expensive crimson carpet brought out to welcome her soon dead husband. Rolling out the carpet, she asks Agamemnon “step from your chariot [and] let not your foot/...touch the earth” (Oresteia 1.906-907). The wise warrior, knowing it would be wrong for a mere mortal to walk on such a Murray 2 priceless tapestry, argues with his vengeful wife, but is eventually convinced to walk “where Justice leads him” (Oresteia 1.911). As he walks on the carpet, ruining it, he asks that “no gods’ hatred strike [him] from afar” for acting higher than mortals should (Oresteia 1.947). His hope is in vain, because shortly after entering the house, Clytaemestra catches of the war hero at his weakest moment—in the bath. Taking advantage of a heroic figure, who is loved by all, is both cowardly and unfair, but Clytaemestra only worries with her pursuit of power. Soon after the murder, Clytaemestra appears again, proudly showing the slain King of Argos. All of these actions grant Clytaemestra the power she yearns, but are done in a very unrespectful and deceitful way. In the next book of The Oresteia, The Libation Bearers, Clytaemestra again tries to hold her power and, this time, to escape death.
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.
When a person is accused of a crime they are either found innocent or guilty. This is the basic idea of justice and it is what many feel needs to happen if someone has done something controversial. In the play The Oresteia by Aeschylus, the story of Clytemnestra guilt or innocents is questioned. She does many things that people are not too happy with and those controversial actions throughout the story, mainly in the first part Agamemnon get her into the trouble. As we explore the case that builds against her innocents by exploring the killings of Agamemnon and Cassandra and the boastful expression about the killings.
While Clytemnestra’s crime would be violent and shocking to the Argive men and to the Greek audience, her motivations for murdering her husband are not completely incomprehensible and are not without some roots in justice. After stabbing the king, Clytemnestra draws the chorus’ attention back to the other murder witnessed earlier in the play: the...
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).
In “The Oresteia” trilogy, the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus advocates the importance of the male role in society over that of the female. The entire trilogy can be seen as a subtle proclamation of the superiority of men over women. Yet, the women create the real interest in the plays. Their characters are the impetus that makes everything occur.
Aeschylus' The Oresteia features two characters burdened by seemingly hopeless decisions. First is Agamemnon, king of Argos, whose army was thwarted by the goddess, Artemis. Agamemnon was faced with the decision to call off the army's sail to Troy, and thus admit defeat and embarrassment, or to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to satisfy Artemis whom had stopped the winds to delay Agamemnon's fleet. Second is Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who was given the choice by Apollo to avenge his father's murder, thus committing matricide, or face a series of torturous consequences. Although both Agamemnon and Orestes were faced with major dilemmas, their intentions and their characters are revealed through their actions to be markedly different.
Throughout the “Oresteia”, Aeschylus depicts gender as a social issue that causes harmful effects within the House of Atreus. Aeschylus draws the cultural significance behind these plays by showing gender-based competition among people who feel intimidated when others do not act within their expected gender identities. Also, in the book Aeschylus indicates that even though women do act appropriately, they are still scorned by men and other women. Through Aeschylus’ depiction of sexist double standards and society’s bias on diverse gender expression, Aeschylus reveals the unjust belittlement towards women, who in the ned, ironically possess authority.
Greek women, as depicted as in their history and literature, endure many hardships and struggle to establish a meaningful status in their society. In the Odyssey, Penelope’s only role in the epic is to support Odysseus and remain loyal to him. She is at home and struggles to keep her family intact while Odysseus is away trying to return to his native land. The cultural role of women is depicted as being supportive of man and nothing more. Yet what women in ancient Greece did long ago was by far more impressive than what men did.
In The Oresteia, Aeschylus encourages the importance of the male role in society over that of the female. The entire trilogy can be seen as a subtle assertion of the superiority of men over women. Yet, the women create the real interest in the plays. Their characters are the incentive that makes everything occur. The characters of Clytaemnestra, Cassandra, and the goddess Athena can demonstrate this.
Clytemnestra first set Agamemnon up by placing a purple carpet on the ground for him to walk on. By doing this Clytemnestra was hoping to get Agamemnon to upset the gods so it wouldn’t be a sin for her to carry out her plan. Agamemnon even acknowledges that he shouldn’t walk on the carpet saying that, were he to walk on it, he would display unseemly pride and incur the wrath of the gods: “Such state becomes the gods and none be...
The Chorus states, “Oh, does Orestes haply live, that by the grace of fortune he may return to this land and slay the pair victoriously?” (49). The Chorus states that Orestes will return to Argos and they foreshadow Clytemnestra and Aegisthus’ death. The Chorus then says, “Not if heaven guide Orestes back to the land” (50). Heaven in this case refers to divine retribution. Orestes seeks retribution from the gods, especially Apollo. Unlike Clytemnestra, who was an instrument of the curse, Orestes is an instrument of the gods. Orestes acted passively, unlike Clytemnestra. He was divinely directed by Apollo to commit matricide, bringing the vendetta to an end. He then sought purification
Comparing the Portrayal of Clytemnestra in Agamemnon and Electra In both Electra and Agamemnon, Euripides and Aeschylus have chosen to represent Clytemnestra as a complex character being neither all bad nor all good - the signature of a sophisticated playwright. In Agamemnon, Clytemnestra is a morbidly obsessive woman, utterly consumed by the murder of her daughter for which the audience cannot help but sympathise; she is capable only of vengeance. In the Electra, Clytemnestra is placed in an even more sympathetic light, victimised by her own daughter who in turn is driven by an obsessive desire, similar to that of her mother's, to avenge her father's death.
After Agamemnon’s death, Aegisthus is next in line to become king and Clytemnestra is his queen. Her desire for power is hidden by her claims of justification. She challenges anyone to take her power. “[H]e who conquers me in fair fight shall rule me” (45). She threatens the Chorus to a fight for power. She knows she has all the power now the king was dead and she is his queen. Clytemnestra is aware she killed him for his power, but her arrogance makes her put the deed on the curse of the House of Atreus and vengeance for
...onounces a winner? Clytaemnestra gives great justice for her doing, claiming Agamemnon not being the saint the town believes. The town still has no grip on the rope but keeps the torn strings on their side as the leader exiles Clytaemnestra.
... husband, she would’ve had to abdicate her throne, something she wasn’t ready to do. Instead, she took a man, Aegisthus, and used him to maintain her position as queen. Without a man by her side, she would’ve had to pass the throne down to Orestes. So rather than give up her last vestige of power, she gets in bed (literally and figuratively) with a rather obnoxious man. From her actions, one can conclude Clytemnestra knew what a handicap her vagina was