Aeschylus’s trilogy The Oresteia is a play of immense proportions, and at its heart it is a study of morality and the palpable tension of the competing ideas of dikē – justice or right. It depicts a societal change from one form of justice and law to another; from the law of the old gods to the law of the new. The third play in the trilogy, The Eumenides, depicts the culmination of this conflict, where all the individual conflicts reach their conclusions and the overarching themes of the trilogy come to their dénouement.
One of the strongest overarching themes of the trilogy is the good/bad male/female dichotomy which intended to influence our reading of the text and the way in which we interpret what is right or wrong. This is very much a gendered battle – what is “female” is seen as bad, in the same category as the uncivilised, the chaos and darkness. This is represented through the Furies and Clytemnestra acting under and for the justice of revenge, the law that demands blood for blood, whereas Orestes and Apollo represent the new democratic law and are depicted as being on the side of the light, the civilised and the ‘just’.
However, the competition between these ideals is not as simple as a battle of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ – Aeschylus represents two very different kinds of justice at play. In Agamamnon, Clytemnestra betrays her husband and …show more content…
Both Orestes and Apollo – who is representative of the new law and the new gods – hold the view that Clytemnestra was neither the mother nor the true parent of Orestes, based on the fact that a mother is, in Apollo’s view, inferior to the status of the father. Orestes states that his mother was not a true mother to him due to the fact that she was neither nurturing nor
One of the strongest overarching themes of the trilogy is the good/bad male/female dichotomy which intended to influence our reading of the text and the way in which we interpret what is right or wrong. This is very much a gendered battle – what is “female” is seen as bad, in the same category as the uncivilised, the chaos and darkness. This is represented through the Furies and Clytemnestra acting under and for the justice of revenge, the law that demands blood for blood, whereas Orestes and Apollo represent the new democratic law and are depicted as being on the side of the light, the civilised and the ‘just’.
However, the competition between these ideals is not as simple as a battle of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ – Aeschylus represents two very different kinds of justice at play. In Agamamnon, Clytemnestra betrays her husband and …show more content…
Both Orestes and Apollo – who is representative of the new law and the new gods – hold the view that Clytemnestra was neither the mother nor the true parent of Orestes, based on the fact that a mother is, in Apollo’s view, inferior to the status of the father. Orestes states that his mother was not a true mother to him due to the fact that she was neither nurturing nor