The main characters in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon formulate two different narratives about the death of their daughter, Iphigenia. As a result of their stories and coping mechanisms being different, the unity of their home is disrupted. Like most stories with multiple authors there are discrepancies, exaggerations, disregarded information, and changes in the way the story is told in order to support the narrators’ agenda. In Agamemnon, Aeschylus reveals through the transformed relationship between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon-as a result of the death of Iphigenia-that when marital partners have discrepancies in shared personal memories that their ideas of home and homecoming are also inconsistent. Clytemnestra as the mother of Iphigenia develops a story about her daughters’ demise; this story ultimately …show more content…
Her version of the story reveals her agenda to redeem revenge in the form of justice for her daughter. Her narrative focuses on the turpitude of Agamemnon’s act and never accommodates the information the chorus communicates to her about how difficult it was for Agamemnon to make the decision; that when Artemis requested the sacrifice he felt like “[his] hands [were] stained” and that he had no other option (page 110, line 210). In Robert Fagles’ translation of Agamemnon, this does not get incorporated into her story because she was not present, when this occurred. Had she been present she might have been more empathetic to Agamemnon creating a more nuanced version of the story; not to say she would have spared his life, but had she still decided to execute him her reason might have been more geared towards justice than revenge. As a result of her absence during the murder, she now only perceives him with resentment, and this is the beginning of the discrepancies in their stories. A problem in the retelling of the story of Iphigenia that
Clytemnestra has the ten years of the Trojan War to plan her revenge on Agamemnon. Upon his return Clytemnestra shows him some love. That love she showed quickly changes to rage and hatred when Clytemnestra she’s Agamemnon with his mistress Cassandra.
The book then talks about viewpoints of women, both real and those who face tragedy. Women during this time were very secluded and silent, but the heroines contradicted that. This chapter talks about the images of women in the classical literature in Athens, and the role they had in society. Many tragedies were ones that formed by mythes during the Bronze Age. It showed the separation in what made women heroic, rather than average. While viewing other Scholarly sourcese, Pomerory writes her own theory, she used others
In The Odyssey and Hymn to Demeter, both Penelope and Demeter love and miss their family members. When Demeter hears her daughter Persephone’s cry, “a sharp grief took hold of Demeter in
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.
For the Greeks, Homer's Odyssey was much more than just an entertaining tale of gods, monsters, and men, it served as cultural paradigm from which every important role and relationship could be defined. This book, much more so than its counter part The Iliad, gives an eclectic view of the Achean's peacetime civilization. Through Odyssey, we gain an understanding of what is proper or improper in relationships between father and son, god and mortal, servant and master, guest and host, and--importantly--man and woman. Women play a vital role in the movement of this narrative. Unlike in The Iliad, where they are chiefly prizes to be won, bereft of identity, the women of Odyssey are unique in their personality, intentions, and relationship towards men. 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.
As one of the most well known ancient Roman love poets, Ovid has demonstrated bountiful talents within his writing. When reading myths from his book titled Metamorphoses, you gain an enlightening insight of how he viewed mythology. To Ovid, love was the origin of everything. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that most of his poems relate to the theme of love. However, not all poets are the same and every re-telling of a myth has its own unique perspective. In this paper I will compare and contrast the myth of Medea in Euripides Medea and Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 7. I will then explain how Ovid’s approach to love and loss correlate to his general approach to myth as a whole. I will support my belief with evidence from Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 14.
The cyclic thread of vengeance runs like wild fire through the three plays in Aeschylus’s Oresteia. This thread, with its complexity of contemporary and universal implications lends itself quite well to – in fact, almost necessitates – deeply interested study. While a brief summary of the Oresteia will inevitably disregard some if not much of the trilogy’s essence and intent, on the positive side it will establish a platform of characters, events, and motives with which this paper is primarily concerned. As such, I begin with a short overview of the Oresteia and the relevant history that immediately precedes it.
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.
The affair between Ares and Aphrodite poses the question of whether Odysseus will return home to find Penelope with another man. The story of Klytemnestra and Agamemnon is a theme itself throughout most of the poem. Therefore its is hard to ignore it as both hold the same story with different outcomes. In addition, the level of anxiety builds through Penelope's actions and the contradicting traits of different women.
... She was powerless to act otherwise. She was not a respected military leader like her husband. She couldn't bring him to court or change destiny in any other way. So, as a mother, she did what she felt she had to do. She acted for the justice of her child and her sex. When Agamemnon ordered the soldiers to put the bit in Iphigeneia's mouth before her sacrifice, it was because he didn't want to hear the cries of his daughter dying. Clytemnestra, however, forced her husband and the rest of Greece to hear the cries, the cries of the pained women and deal with the situation he did nothing to mend. For this she would be condemned, but because of her powerlessness, for this she was justified.
Aeschylus and Eugene O'Neill have populated their trilogies with cannibals and vampires. Family members feed off one another both literally and figuratively. For the houses of both Agamemnon and Ezra Mannon, this bloodlust is insatiable and inherited, an inescapable curse. A family curse provides the dramatic force necessary to push characters toward pivotal actions and events. At the conclusion of both trilogies the curse is finally broken (or at the very least supplanted). While O'Neill and Aeschylus articulate the destructive and violent effects of the curse in similar terms, each playwright breaks the curse to achieve distinctly different thematic goals. The curse is described and decentered in order to be critiqued.
Olsen, S. D. "The Stories of Agamemnon in Homer's Odyssey." Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 120 (1990): 57-71. JSTOR. Web. .
I attended Iphigenia in Aulis at the Getty Villa on Thursday, September 21 at 8:00 PM. Iphigenia in Aulis is an Ancient Greek play written by Euripides. The play was set in the small amphitheater at the Getty Villa. In the beginning of the play, Agamemnon has second thoughts about the sacrifice he must make, and he sends a letter to his wife telling her not to come to Aulis. Agamemnon’s brother gets the letter before Agamemnon’s slave can send it, and argues with Agamemnon about how foolish it would be to put his family before all of the Greeks. Then using what seems like reverse psychology, Agamemnon’s brother apologizes and says that Agamemnon should absolutely not kill his own daughter. In response to this,
In Aeschylus’ The Agamemnon, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra have to make tough decisions throughout the play, decisions they believe are justified. The actions of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra are not justified because they are caused by their blinding hubris and desire for power. Agamemnon makes the choice to kill his daughter just so he could lead his troops to Troy. Clytemnestra kills her husband, not just for revenge, but for his position and power as king of Mycenae. They make selfish choices and do not believe they will be punished for them. By exposing their true motives, Aeschylus makes it clear they are not justified in their actions.
Agamemnon is the first part of the trilogy known as the Oresteia. Agamemnon is a story where the main character sacrifices his own daughter to a God, Artemis to win a battle and then his wife revenge him for the sacrifice. The concept of fate plays an important role in the tilogy Agamemnon which led to the tragic endings of the play. According to the meaning of fate it means the development of events outside a person’s control, regarded as predetermined by a super natural power. Fate is what send Agamemnon to the war with Menelaus to fight against Paris, fate is what predetermined Agamemnon to sacrifice his own blood for the sake of his ship and companions and fate is what determined Cassandra his wife to plot to kill him and to revenge him for her daughter.