Clytemnestra falls into the horrible double standard that women hold in our world and her reputation is tarnished by the misinformation given about her. In Homer’s epic Odyssey Agamemnon labeled Clytemnestra as his ”accursed wife” (Homer 463) who is accused of killing him to be with her supposed lover Aegisthus, but in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon she reveals unapologetically her reasoning for killing her husband, which changes the whole perspective of her character. It is revealed in the play Agamemnon that Agamemnon killed Clytemnestra’s daughter, Iphigeneia, and she seeks revenge on Agamemnon for the death of her child (Agamemnon 1385-1386). Clytemnestra is perceived as evil and cold-hearted in the Odyssey but the information that you gather in …show more content…
He personifies her an evil that all women hold inside them as a whole and according to his account of the event she is just that (491). The ghost of Agamemnon paints the event to Odysseus, his war partner, as a “feast” used as a deception to “cut me down as a man cuts down some ox at the trough!” he describes “But the death-cry of Cassandra, Priam’s daughter--- the most pitiful thing I heard! My treacherous queen, Clytemnestra, killed her over my body” (476-479). He paints a picture that Clytemnestra is just purely evil and she has no heart to do something like this to a man she claims to …show more content…
“Thus to me the conflict born of ancient bitterness is not a thing new thought upon, but pondered deep in time” she reveals in the play that her husband led himself to this unfortunate fate because of the anger that was brewing deep inside her after the death of her child (Agamemnon 1344-1346). The love a mother has for her child is unrestricted and losing that child can make a women do irrational things, so to call Clytemnestra vile is unjust, taking all the new facts about Agamemnon into consideration. (1399-1411). She shows that he is not the moral man everyone thinks he is and “ No shame, I think, in the death given this man.” (1488-1489). The love she had for him was in their child and when he slaughtered Iphigeneia, he caused her become mad. She confirms that she is content with her actions and decides to “endure all things as they stand now, hard it be” (1535-1536). It will be hard to live with the fact that her family has perished due to the actions of her husband but this is what she has to cope with to avenge her daughter who is nothing but the unconditional love of a
The Oresteia trilogy follows a series of murders among the family of Orestes. In the first play, Agamemnon, the blood of Orestes’ father, Agamemnon, and his father’s war prize, Casandra, spills at the hands of Orestes’ mother, Clytamnestra. Following suit, Orestes avenges his father’s cold-blooded murder in the second play, The Libation Bearer, by killing his mother and her lover, Aegisthus. The acts of revenge by Orestes come to a climax in the third and final play of the trilogy, The Eumenides. With a monumental trial between Orestes and the Furies, a question of justification arises. Did Orestes have a justified reason to commit matricide? Or did his actions reveal a dark, unjustified moment of kin murder? Orestes’ murder of his mother, Clytamnestra, is justified because of the gods’ interference throughout the Oresteia trilogy.
Some women are known for the deeds of their sons or husbands, but never for a heroic deed of their own, their personalities, and what they do themselves. It seems the only accomplishment women could achieve was being beautiful. Theseus "had no joy of"(195) the princess Ariadne because she died before this was possible. Homer makes it sound as if Ariadne's life was useless because she did not give Theseus pleasure. The only woman we hear of for a different reason is Klymene, and we only hear of her because she "betrayed her lord for gold."(195) This is the only time we hear of a woman for something she did, and once we do, it is a negative remark. Penelope, Odysseus' queen, is paid attention to only because of her position. Because she has a kingdom, she has suitors crowding around her day and night. Being a woman, Penelope has no control over what the suitors do and cannot get rid of them. The suitors want her wealth and her kingdom. They do not respect her enough to stop feeding on Odysseus' wealth; they feel she owes them something because she won't marry one of them. One of the suitors, Antinoos, tells Telemakhos "...but you should know the suitors are not to blame- it is your own incomparably cunning mother."(21) Even Telemakhos doesn't respect his mother as he should. When the song of a minstrel makes her sad and Penelope requests him to stop playing, Telemakhos interrupts and says to her, "Mother, why do you grudge our own dear minstrel joy of song, wherever his thought may lead.
Menelaos' brother, Agamemnon, does not have a healthy family relationship. His family is held up to everyone as what a family should not be. It is ironic that the marriages of two brothers, Agamemnon and Menelaos, to two sisters, Helen and Clytemnestra, should be such exact opposite in their outcome. During his absence during the Trojan War, Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, took a lover, Aigisthos. Upon Agamemnon's return, Clytemnestra kills him and his slave-mistress, Cassandra.
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.
Aeschylus begins by portraying Clytemnestra as Agamemnon’s faithful wife brought only to a murderous rampage by the news of her daughter’s murder, but indeed she was stricken with the curse of jealousy and had a yearning so strong to maintain power she killed the father of her
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).
... 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.
She is always spoken of respectfully and is remembered for her heroic deeds. She is not degraded like many of the other women Odysseus sees in the underworld. Everyone worships her and speaks about her achievements with great admiration; she is truly admired, but because she is a goddess. Athena has control over men that most women in The Odyssey do not. Women 's lives depend on what men think of them, on the other hand, men 's lives depend on Athena 's opinion of them. Athena is "Zeus ' virgin daughter" and no one has used her in that way. She is too important to be used as being an enjoyment for men; they depend on her for their own welfare. Another woman that plays a big role in this epic is Calypso. Calypso a nymph, a child of Zeus, and lives on an island in the middle of the ocean. One day Odysseus is sent to her by the god of the sea, Poseidon, because Poseidon was mad at Odysseus for blinding his son, the Cyclops. It is on this island that another woman is used as a sexual toy and is not thought of for her own achievements, but rather for her beauty, and the fact that she is the daughter of Zeus. Men in The Odyssey only value women who they can use for physical needs and wealth, such as the women in the underworld that Odysseus encounters, and Penelope. Homer shows us how men in The Odyssey consider women less important than men. The readers rarely hear of women throughout the book. When they do, they are shown
Klytaimestra has thought up an ingenious plan to uncover the outcome of the Trojan War as quickly as possible; however, when she tries to share the news, the Chorus castoffs her declaration. This constant stichomythia between the Chorus and Klytaimestra annoys her because of the persistent disbelief, “And you have proof?/That, or a phantom spirit sends you into raptures” (272-274). The Chorus, which consists of men, do not accept that a woman can have any sort of knowledge before they do. They dismiss her claims until they hear it from a male messenger, which makes Klytaimestra very angry: “I cried out long ago!/You made me seem deranged” (580-586). Further, when she explains how she discovered the outcome, the men automatically assume that because she is a woman, she got her information from gossiping. “Just like a woman/to fill with thanks before the truth is clear . . . So gullible. Their stories spread like wildfire,/they fly fast and die faster;/rumours voiced by women come to nothing.” To the Chorus, a woman to devise a plan as clever as Klytaimestra’s, is inconceivable. But even after Klytaimestra’s facts are proven, the Chorus will later undermine her abilities again.
In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon there are many different opinions about what kind of king and commander Agamemnon was. Some argued that he was good, while others dispute that his motives were wrong. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, gained a strong hatred for him, after he sacrificed his own daughter so he could go to war. Many believe that this was not necessary and could have been overcome. The chorus seems to agree with this to an extent, and feels that Agamemnon could have prayed and requested that he not sacrifice his daughter.
In the epic poem, it gives images of Penelope and Clytemnestra that helps to interpret what an ideal woman Penelope was in Ancient Greece. Penelope is represented as the ideal woman because she remains trustworthy to Odysseus, even though he has been gone for several years. Penelope also embodies the ideal Greek woman because she is a faithful wife to Odysseus, a great hostess, and rejects all moves upon her from the suitors in her house. One quote at the end of the book that shows she’s been loyal for this long time period is when the book states, “ The more she spoke, the more deep desire for tears welled up inside his breast—he wept as he held the wife he loved, the soul of loyalty, in his arms at last” (Homer, Odyssey, Book 23, Line 259-261). On top of that she shows a sense of intelligence being able to scheme and deal with the suitors around her all the time. Another great quote that represents her loyalty is when Penelope says “they court me against my law, they lay waste in my house (Homer, Odyssey, Book 19, Line 148)”, which is when she [Penelope] herself is basically explaining how she remains loyal even though there are several men making advances towards her in her own
In the Iliad, we are only exposed to a handful of women; however in the Odyssey, many more women become integral parts in the story but with little character development. This is expected because in times of war, the only women that these men were exposed to were concubines or their wives which both had little significance because they were preoccupied with battle. When the men returned to their homes, women began to have a larger role because the men were not solely focused on war. Many of the women have either a negative or positive connotation associated with them with little variation between the two. We have the vengeful seductresses Calypso and Circe to the unfaithful wives Helen and Clytemnestra. These women represent the traits that were abhorred by the society
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.
She explained that Agamemnon killed their daughter and yet received no punishment calling her actions: “a masterpiece of justice” (Agamemnon line 1430). With this information alone, Clytemnestra’s actions can be understood.
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.