Orestes

Mormon fundamentalism with my US Politics & Religion class and how a “woman’s purpose” was to bear children. So, this was a wild ride full of frustration.) The tone that Aeschylus uses towards women was not unexpected, but I still was not ready for Orestes and Apollo to be so direct with their misogyny. When Pythia, the priestess of Apollo, opens the first scene, she immediately honors three powerful females: Gaia, Themis, and Phoebe. Delphi was a matriarchal society from the start. I suppose…

over Orestes’ actions, their true passion lies more in his punishment than any other part of their speech. This thesis will be demonstrated through the analysis of passages through the lens of the following principles of close reading: temporal order, pronouns, and repetition. On page 243, lines two hundred fifty five to two hundred seventy one, the Furies are talking about Orestes’s actions, how they feel about Orestes killing Clytemnestra, and the punishment they expect to be put on Orestes…

order of Orestes to control Jewish celebrations met with approval by Christians, then to violence between the Christians and the Jews. The Christian-told stories make it clear that they blame the Jews for mass killing of Christians, leading to the banishment of the Jews of Alexandria by Cyril. Cyril accused Orestes of being a pagan, and a large group of monks who came to fight with Cyril, attacked Orestes. A monk who injured Orestes was arrested and tortured. John of Nikiu accuses Orestes of…

They begin their rage against Athena and Apollo. The Furies try to charge Orestes as being guilty, saying that a “darkness hovers over [him], dark guilt / and a dense pall overhangs his house” (E 382-83), accusing Orestes of personal revenge and threatening to push everyone back into the darkness of a patriarchal rule. This is the transition of change between the light to dark, good to bad, and new…

divine justice does not seem to follow any uniform rules or be applied to everybody equally. “The Libation Bearers” by Aeschylus and Sophocles’ “Antigone” vividly represent the ambiguous character of divine justice. In the first play, Apollo directs Orestes to kill his own mother to impose justice, while in the latter, gods fail to save their protégée Antigone from Creon’s punishment irrespective of her loyalty to divine law. The entire Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus is filled with the mixture…

Agamemnon, of the trilogy, The Oresteia. He is very angered by this act of treason and would be likely to seek revenge upon Clytemnestra through his son, Orestes in the book Choephoroe part of the trilogy, The Oresteia. Agamemnon firmly believes people should be held responsible for their actions. Although, Agamemnon would still want Orestes to take revenge upon Clytemnestra, because Agamemnon believes she should suffer the same fate as he did, by the hands of a loved one. Agamemnon is…

gods of Greece, and a new notion of justice. In reference to the Furies’ ancient beliefs, Apollo states that “Justice and bloody slaughter are the same” (Aeschylus 239). Apollo hopes for Orestes freedom, and he does not want the bloody cycle of violence and retribution to continue. Apollo gets his wish when Orestes seeks the help of Athena, the daughter of Zeus. Athena realizes that Orestes’s case is not black and white; she is not entirely sure that putting him to death is the morally right and…

trial, and the slow deconstruction of Orestes’ family throughout The Oresteia. The argument set forth by Saxonhouse, describes a society envisioned by Aeschylus while the actual Athens was being founded, where its citizens move past the ancient traditions that focused on protecting one’s family, to a society that relied upon its citizens to protect the city first, then the family. This separation of family and state, is first shown in the breaking down of Orestes’ family; where justice starts to…

Eumenides summary Atreus and Thyestes are competing for the throne of Argos. Thyestes seduced his brother’s wife and was driven out of Argos by his brother. When Thyestes returns he and his brother seem to be cool with each other. At least that’s what Thyestes thinks. Atreus looks to seek revenge for what his brother did. Atreus murdered the two sons of Thyestes, and had them chopped up and cooked to be served to their father at his honor banquet. When Thyestes finds out he has eaten his sons,…

She is a tragic character who is unworthy of the audience’s catharsis, as defined by Aristotle, because she is unworthy of pity or fear. Truly, the death of her shows the interesting moral dilemma that Orestes faces, but he ultimately acts justly. Furthermore, she is ultimately the cause of her own death by choosing power over her children, even though she claims to be avenging the death of one. Clytaemnestra is a fully contemptible character who serves…