Oresteia

My client Orestes, son of the late king Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, is on trial for the murder of his mother. Athenians of the jury, you have heard testimony today that has painted my client as a ruthless murderer who has sunk so low as to have killed his own family. I implore to look past the duplicitous rhetoric of the prosecution and understand that this is not an issue of murder, but rather justice. Orestes may have very well killed his mother, but we must stop and think about why a son, who…

The Revenge Cycle In ancient Greece, retributive justice served as both a strict societal code and an expectation of the cosmos. In The Eumenides by Aeschylus, the Furies serve as the defenders of this justice, which is explored in depth during the Furies’ monologue as they pursue Orestes for his matricide. In order to understand this passage fully, the reader must first grasp the Furies’ sense of justice. To these beings, justice is rooted in the ancient laws that require equal retribution…

In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Lysias 1, the characterization of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon’s relationship is similar with Euphiletos and his wife; however, when we focus on the character’s specific gender roles, they are immensely different. Both marriages are built on deceit and lies. They also revolve around the concept of adultery but each individual responds in a certain way that is unique to their role. On one side, Euphiletos murders the adulterer, Eratosthenes, and defends himself as being…

To a certain extent Clytemnestra would have been a better title for the first play of the Oresteia as she is featured more in it but there are reasons that say that Agamemnon was the right title for the play. A major point that could mean that calling the first Oresteia Agamemnon was wrong was that Clytemnestra is on the stage for the majority of the play. She first appears lighting the altar for a sacrifice when the Watchman has finished speaking and the Chorus start their first Ode.…

Gaetano (class) (professor) (date) Taming One’s Fury: The Process of Civilization When Freud discusses the oceanic feeling, he argues that this comes about from a regression to a previous state, a result of the “primary ego-feeling” that people felt when they were infants “[persisting] to a greater or less degree” (Freud 4). This primary ego-feeling is one that has not yet managed to separate itself from the world around it, failing to differentiate between the internal and the external world.…

In Sophocles Electra one might find many different aspects of human experience, mainly because there are many different things at play. Love, lust, betrayal, fidelity, hope, morality and finally the experience which stands out most Revenge. Ah yes revenge, a very powerful human experience that controls and over comes many of the main characters that are found in the texts we read. Not only do we find this in the texts we read but also in our everyday life, everyday people, politician or…

A crime buried without justice is never fully laid to rest. Imagine having a family member of yours or a dear friend murdered, retaliating would be the first thought on your mind. As the expression goes, an eye for an eye. However, the quench for revenge could lead to irreversible mistakes without any just cause. In the case of Orestes and his sister Electra, they are determined to slay their mother, Clytemnestra, for the murder of their father, Agamemnon. Will the death of their mother bring…

pieces to support your answer but do not use long quotes. Do not summarize the plot! According to the definition justice and vengeance are a part of each other. The characters in the Odyssey and Hamlet uses justice and vengeance as a means for punishment throughout both pieces of literature. In comparison both the Odyssey and Hamlet uses trickery and deceit as a means to seek vengeance for the sake of family. In the Odyssey as well as in Hamlet both had to defend their honor and family’s…

between blood and water. Most religious or spiritual people share a universal belief in a relationship - or a covenant - between humanity and the divine, yet they struggle to understand the barrier between the two. Structural analysis of Aeschylus’ Oresteia Trilogy illuminates the distinctions between humans and gods, focusing on the concepts’ amalgamation in one paramount act that unites humans and divinities. Clytaemnestra sparks this series of polarities by mercilessly slaying her husband,…

In Aeschylus’ The Oresteia and Sophocles’ The Oedipus Cycles, the division between public and private life is related to the distinctions between man and woman and reason and emotion. Tragedy attempts to deal with these binaries by discussing the relationship between the state in combination and traditional gender divisions. In The Oresteia and The Oedipus Cycles, women have seemingly contradictory roles of power and influence, only to be marginalized by the dominant men of law and reason. These…