THESIS STATEMENT
In Aeschylus’ The Agamemnon, as well as other literary works, Agamemnon suffers from the sin of hubris.
PURPOSE STATEMENT
Through the play The Agamemnon, as well as research and other literary works based upon the play, evidence shows that Agamemnon suffers from the sin of hubris.
INTRODUCTION
Imagine thousands of people cheering for you as you return from battle victoriously. Upon your arrival a parade is being held in your honor. Your spouse is so excited to see you and there is a huge dinner prepared. That life sounds pretty prodigious. Safe to say anyone would be honored to have this happen to them in a lifetime. In modern times we would think that someone who got that type of attention would be one who is famous. While the attention they get may seem phenomenal, some get caught up in all of the fame and don’t know how to handle it. Not knowing how to handle this pride could lead to dangerous situations.
This is precisely what happens to Agamemnon. His hubris allows him to believe that he is preeminent. He allows his self-dignity to rise when he hears compliments about himself from the citizens of Argos. Agamemnon condones his presumption to justify his deplorable actions. He runs into several problems in the play as his admiration for himself increases. Had he been more cognizant and less egotistical, many of those problems could have been avoided.
AGAMEMNON----KING OR GOD?
In Aeschylus’ The Agamemnon, Agamemnon reckons that his kingly role entitles him to more than what it veritably entails. He thinks the gods will make an exception for him because he is atop everyone else. “Give me I say the worship not of your god but of your lord” (Aeschylus 34). Agamemnon thinks he is deserving of the idolizatio...
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...ffers from the sin of hubris.
Works Cited
Aeschylus. "Agamemnon." The Complete Greek Tragedies. Ed. Richard Lattimore. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1959. 35-90. Print. Aeschylus.
Aeschylus. "Agamemnon." Nine Greek Drama. Ed. E.D.A Morshead. Vol. 8. New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1937. 7-75. Print. The Harvard Classics.
Aeschylus, and A.W. Verrall. "The Agamemnon." Greek Drama. New York: Bantam, 1982. 16-50. Print.
Clarke, Lindsay. The Return from Troy. London: HarperCollins, 2006. Print.
Gere, Cathy. The Tomb of Agamemnon. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2006. Print.
Homer, Robert Fagles, and Bernard Knox. "The Rage of Achilles." The Iliad. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Viking, 1990. 77-98. Print.
Pearson, Anne. Ancient Greece. New York: DK Pub., 2007. Print.
Unsworth, Barry. The Songs of the Kings. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2003. Print.
The difference in Agamemnon’s and Odysseus’s approach of their homeland is a reason for their differing fates. Agamemnon, the king of Argos, returns from Troy after a safe journey. Once he lands on the shores of his native earth, his false sense of security renders him unsuspecting of the possible danger that lurks in his own home. His naiveté leads him to approach his home directly to show his people that he has returned. Since his subjects were no longer loyal to him, his exposure leads to his demise. Their disloyalty is revealed when Aegisthus, the man who plots to kill Agamemnon, gathers the town’s best soldiers to ambush the king. Agamemnon meets Aegisthus, who organized a banquet where the king and his company are mercilessly slaughtered. Because he fails to assess the danger that exists in his homeland, Agamemnon meets his end soon after his return.
Phoenix’s paradigm narrative fails to persuade Achilles to rejoin the war because the specifics of that narrative fail to align with Achilles’ specific concerns. In particular, Phoenix neglects the pernicious effects of Agamemnon 's actions on Achilles’ notions of honor and pride.
The great Saint Augustine once said, “It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels” (Enchiridion of Augustine chap. 27). Hubris “a great or foolish amount of pride or confidence”. This is a very important word in the play and for the characters. It is displayed in the play because it makes it more interesting in so many ways. Many of the conflicts are caused because of hubris. In a way it is good to have pride, but an excessive amount of pride can be harmful. In the play Antigone, Creon is the one that has the most pride.
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
The chorus sites hubris, the Greek word referring to mortal pride or arrogance, as being the cause of many bad fates. Someone guilty of hubris aspires to be more and do more than what the gods allow, resulting in severe punishment and a tragic destiny. As an example, the chorus recites the story of Ouranus in lines 168-175 of Agamemnon. They tell of his pride and arrogance, and how both ultimately led to his fall. They continue to list two of his successors who suffered the same fate. Hubris is also discussed in lines 461-470, explaining that, "The gods are not blind to men who... unjustly prosper." The chorus views this arrogance as a terrible offense to the gods, and warns all those who dare set themselves beyond Justice to limit their belongings to what they need and what the gods allot them. They offer this warning so that all people might "avoid this suffering," (Agamemnon, lines 370-381).
Euripides. Three Plays of Euripides: Alcestic, Medea, The Bacchae. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1974. Print.
Homer’s moral exemplars in the heroic tragedy, The Iliad, can be analyzed to further understand warrior ethics. Agamemnon, a powerful warrior king, was proud and arrogant. These qualities made him an excellent warrior and the Greeks respected him. However, Agamemnon demonstrated excess pride and arrogance, as well as stubbornness. The Greeks believed that people must face their destiny with pride and nobility.
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.
Grene, David., and Richmond Alexander Lattimore. Greek Tragedies. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
* Scully, J & Herington, C.J., Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound (Oxford University Press, New York 1975)
Agamemnon: “loud and ringing cry was of war, from anger, like vultures which in extreme anguish for their young wheel and spiral high above their nests […].
In Histories, Herodotus’ uses a variety of themes to narrate historical events and a common theme revolves around hubris. Extremely common amongst Greek literature and Greek mythology, hubris appears to be the infamous human trait. Greek mythology sees hubris as a great atrocity and results in an unrelenting punishment. The idea of hubris is that an individual with an authoritative position, a strong or influential leader, becomes extremely proud of his exceptional qualities and forms a delusion of his position to be on par with even the Gods. This blinds the hubristic individual into believing he can defy the Gods and elude ones inevitable fate. Herodotus’ Histories is no exception to containing individuals that display hubristic qualities similar to many other significant historical entities. In Histories, the theme of hubris assists the reader in making a connection between the excerpts from the end of book 1 (1-204-206) to other books and excerpts in Herodotus’ Histories.
One of the best summarizes of Greeks’ gods attitude toward human is the claim of Aphrodite in Euripides’ Hippolytus that she will treat well the people who revere her power, but will “trip up” those who are proud towards her, and this pri...
Owen, E. T. "Drama in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus." 20th Centruy Interpretations of Oedipus Rex. Ed. Micheal O'Brien. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968. 33-35. Print.
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.