The Power of Zeus Teleios in the Oresteia

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The Power of Zeus Teleios in the Oresteia

Is the action in the Oresteia preordained? Is the trilogy simply a working through of destiny and fate; the ultimate telos of the events being the downfall of the house of Atreus? Are the characters in the story destroyed by themselves or by the necessity of the deeds that are carried out? These are some of the questions I will discuss in this essay.

I wish to concentrate on the end of the story as we know it, the Eumenides, with reference to character portrayal in the previous parts of the trilogy. The characters I am really interested in discussing are Klytaemnestra, the Erinyes and Orestes in particular, but am also going to make brief reference to the characters of Elektra and Athena.

Klytaemnestra appears in all three plays in the trilogy: which through repetition, for me at least, makes her the most important character. More than anything, in the Oresteia, we watch Klytaemnestra become powerless. It is her transgression of limits1 that we see rectified.

Klytaemnestra in Agamemnon is a strong and wilful woman, who relishes her part in the downfall of Agamemnon himself. She is proud of her action, accepts full responsibility for his death at her hands; she takes her vengeance against him for the death of Iphigeneia2. This is shown in lines such as 'I exult' (A 1417) and after she kills him, 'you think I'm some irresponsible woman?' (A 1425). Aeschylus uses her to embody the powerful 'heroic' ethic of vengeance - blood for blood.

This is unusual firstly because she is a woman; it would seem more appropriate to use a hero in the traditional Homeric sense to embody a heroic ethic. Secondly, we have the dichotomy between the markedly female Erinyes, visualising the nature of 'blood for blood' in Eumenides and the act of vengeance itself - expressed in Homer as a male 'heroic' ethic.

We know this is the start of a trilogy because an audience cannot see a woman - especially one as anti-matriarchal as Klytaemnestra - triumph over a king as famous and respected as Agamemnon. Her downfall is intrinsically tied in with his; she catches herself in the 'great net' (A 1402) and it is her struggles that 'merely tightened the tangle.' (A 1403).

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