Agamemnon Sympathy

Clytemnestra’s overwhelming hate for her husband deepens because Agamemnon shows no feelings of remorse and believes that Iphigenia’s sacrifice “[is] for the best” (216-224). Aeschylus recalls the final moments of Iphigenia’s sacrifice: “her pleading, her terrified cries of “Father”!/[…]/ Her eyes threw a last pitiful glace at her sacrificers,/ but like a figure in a painting,/she could not call to them for help” (228-242). Consequently, Iphigenia’s heartbreaking sacrifice motivates Clytemnestra’s “unforgiving child-avenging Rage” (155) upon her husband, Agamemnon. Clytemnestra’s maternal instinct implores her to take revenge against Agamemnon for his mistreatment of their daughter. Furthermore, Clytemnestra views Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia as a betrayal of their marital love. Clytemnestra believes her husband deserves the same fate as Iphigenia because Agamemnon “[has] sacrificed [their] own child, [Clytemnestra’s] labour of love, to charm away the cruel storm-winds of Thrace” (1417-1417). To Clytemnestra, Agamemnon must “suffer, deed for deed,/ for what he [has] [done] to [their] daughter,/Iphigenia, his own flesh and blood!”

Agamemnon is the first book in the Orestiean Trilogy written by the famous Greek tragedy writer, Aeschylus. Agamemnon is a story of justice and revenge. The story takes place in a city called Argos. It starts with Agamemnon, the king of Argos, away at the Trojan War. The city is eagerly awaiting the news of their king’s welfare and the outcome of the war. Watchmen are posted in the city, watching for the beacon that would report the capture of Troy and Agamemnon’s return. Beacons are set up from Troy to Argos; when one beacon is lit, the next one will be lit, until the last. The play starts when a palace watchman discovers the beacon and tells Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, the good news.

The female characters portrayed in Aeschylus and Sophocles’ works have considerably different personalities and roles, yet those females all have the common weaknesses of being short-sighted and stubborn. They intensify the conflicts within their families while being inconsiderate of the impacts that they may bring to their nations and societies, which leads to consequences that they are incapable of taking responsibilities for. Clytemnestra and Antigone, two major characters in their respective author’s works, possess different motivations for their deeds in the stories. While Clytemnestra is driven by the desire of revenge to murder her husband Agamemnon, Antigone acts against Creon’s will and strives to properly bury her brother. Despite having different motivations and personalities, Clytemnestra and Antigone both commit

Everyone is going to die. This is no secret to the audience of the Greek play Agamemnon. Rather than surprising us with the murders that befall at the hands of vengeance, the Greek playwright uses this common story to display the underlying theme that one must first suffer before they can reach the truth. To understand the significance behind the story of Agamemnon, one must understand the passions and how they relate to the human person, Zeus’s law of suffering into truth, and Aeschylus’s motives for writing Agamemnon and how he reflects Catholic teaching.

Clytaemestra, whose infidelity and Agamemnon`s murder create a domino effect, which in turn brings a reign of chaos and killing begins as conspiracies and family secrets are reveled. Clytaemestra can be viewed as the unethical, evil character, nevertheless, her independed will and ability to murder, translate into strength and intellect. Clytaemestra drives the plot into "the complicated" which forms the majority of the tragedy itself.

Clytemnestra fits the character of one of the Argos’s contaminations because of her adulterous acts with Aegisthus and her psychotic murderous plans to kill her husband Agamemnon. In her point of view, justice will only be obtained of she avenges the death of her daughter Iphigenia by killing the one who murdered her, Agamemnon. Cassandra mentions this cycle of fertility and decay when she talks about “the babies wailing, skewered on the sword, their flesh charred, the father gorging on their parts” referring to Thyestes’ babies (A 1095-1097). More blood vengeance and violence only fuels what becomes a never ending cycle of death and decay within the House of Atreus. When Clytaemnestra finally kills Agamemnon she cries, “So he goes down, and the life is bursting out of him—great sprays of blood, and the murderous shower wounds me, dyes me black and I, I revel like the Earth when the spring rains come down, the blessed gifts of god, and the new green spear splits the sheath and rips to birth in glory!”, and she feels reborn from his death and even calls it a gift from the god (A 1410-1415). Not only does Clytaemnestra feel renewed from murdering Agamemnon, but she feels that it was the proper and just thing to do. Although the Furies don’t go after her since this is not a crime of matricide or patricide, killing her husband is unwise and unfair because in Agamemnon’s

Misogyny pervades the picture Aeschylus, Aristophanes, and Sophocles paint of Athenian society. In their literature, however, female characters catalyze plot by challenging this picture. Such characters--from Sophocles’ Antigone to Aristophanes’ Lysistrata--face grim consequences for acting independently. Clytemnestra and Cassandra from Aeschylus’s Agamemnon exemplify this archetype of autonomy and destruction. When they confront injustice, male characters perceive them as vindictive and hysterical. This paper will compare the standards of justice Aeschylus’s society imposes on men and women. I will argue that Clytemnestra and Cassandra are protectors of divine justice who reject subservience and thereby transcend the sexism of their society.

We learn why Clytaemnstra must kill her husband, therefore the actions are not clear. There is no clear recognition for the hero, Agamemnon’s death is unwitting, but Casandra recognises the impending slaughter and tells the audience and the chorus why we cannot understand

She possesses great vulnerability as victim to Apollo, who gave her powers, Agamemnon, her kidnapper, and Clytemnestra, her murderer. The first group of people she spoke to were the Chorus, who acted as the voice of the common man throughout the trilogy. She described her visions, in detail, of the future. Cassandra tells the chorus how she deceived Apollo by promising to marry him in exchange for prophetic powers but backed out. Upon realizing her deceit, Apollo cursed her so that no one would believe her prophecies. She wails that the House of Atreus is cursed because of the blood-soaked hands of the past fathers. She predicts that Clytemnestra will kill Agamemnon and describes the frantic splashing of Agamemnon in the bath tub while Clytemnestra stabs him. She also predicts her own murder at the hands of two butchers, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Cassandra, uninvolved in the family’s ordeals, fears for her own life but then soon realizes that fate is inexorable and accepts her death with courage. The Chorus doesn’t understand her utterances, but know that they are full of sorrow. She also foretells Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, will avenge his father’s death by murdering his mother. Cassandra isn’t presented as a citizen but rather as an unstable, dirty (matter out of place) slave. Carson situates women as “pollutable, polluted, and polluting in several ways at once” resulting in the male fearing the woman for lack of personal boundary

No blame is placed upon him by the people and they believe he "slipped his neck in the strap of fate" 217, only after which did his spirit become "black, impure, unholy" 218. The people of Mycenae, typically represented by the elders, and thus the Chorus have absolved him of blame in their minds. All their words about the leader are nothing but in praise of their king. They are nearly "faint with longing" for the return of their king, though we can also partly attribute this to a desire to be rid of Clytemnestra more than their wish to return to the rule of Agamemnon. They indeed emphasise the tyranny of the Queen ("she commands, full of her high hopes...manoeuvres like a man" 13). The sentry echoes the love for the King though ("My king, I'll take your loving hand in mine" 37), and the herald is similarly well disposed toward him, and he hasn't been under the yoke of Clytemnestra ("he brings us light in the darkness...Agamemnon lord of men"). The people absolve the King of blame over Iphigenia, and give him unconditional loyalty, but Clytemnestra rests it all upon his shoulders ("girl of tears...here you are repaid" 1554). She understands the grandeur of her action and the scale of it but believes that "what we did was destiny" 1692. Though, it is my belief that the honourable King of Mycenae was commanded by the fates to kill his daughter, and it was by no means his will to carry

Like the other two texts, the play of Agamemnon includes a character who was of higher standing and inherently good fortune but faces a plot reversal, which leads to suffering and death.

Clytemnestra makes no implications of violence until she deceitfully welcomes Agamemnon, “For while the root still lives, the leaves bring cool shade to the house again. So coming back to hearth and home, you bring a summer’s warmth to us in wintertime,” (77: 1108-1112). This quote serves as the prelude to Clytemnestra finally utilizing destructive justice, and thus breaking the circle of violence. Clytemnestra destructiveness is intrinsic in the scene where she welcome home Agamemnon, who accompanied by Cassandra. Aeschylus writes, “You go inside now. I’m talking to you, Cassandra. Zeus, not unkindly, has determined you should share the lustral water of our house, standing where all our slaves crowd the altar of god who guards the house’s wealth” (79:1173-78). In this excerpt, Clytemnestra shows that she is the head of her household because she can determine who is rightfully welcome. One might argue that Clytemnestra is not revealing destructive justice because of her calmness and generosity in this scene. However, the passage suggests that she is the head and Cassandra is the extended family, and therefore Clytemnestra shows a hint of her destructiveness as she enslaves Cassandra. Clytemnestra mercilessly tells Cassandra that it is “Here with us you’ll be treated as custom warrants (1189).

The first play, Agamemnon, tells about the return of the King from the Trojan wars and how his wife has chosen to react to the reunion. Clytemnestra is the queen who was angered by the fact that Agamemnon was away for a decade and that the King sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to one of the gods. In one part of the play, the Chorus of Elders chants "Zeus who hath paved a way for human thought, by ordaining this firm law 'He who learns, suffers'" (Aeschylus, trans. 1893, 1.176-179) which speaks to the law that was formed by the words. The people of Greece followed the law that a person who commits a crime, whether that be a recognized law or one that the punisher deemed appropriate, is subject to some form of punishment. In Agamemnon's case, Clytemnestra believed that his actions justified his death. She did not believe that it was murder because his actions justified her actions.

Shortly after Cassandra reveals her visions Agamemnon is murdered by Clytemnestra. Agamemnon cries: "o-oh! I am hit. . . mortally hit. . . within." p82 Agamemnon dies despite his ignorance of the prophecy.

The story of Agamemnon was really a prime example of the masculinity of Clytemnestra. From the point in the story where Agamemnon has to sacrifice his beloved daughter in order to save the people of his empire and go to war, you could tell that did not sit well with her. I mean it must be the worst thing in the world to have to sacrifice a child of your own, something that a king had to do. It makes you think of how great of a king he was to have the balls to do so, but that decision that he made it stuck with Clytemnestra. It drove her into madness, and ruthless behavior. She wanted her revenge and she was going to have her revenge no matter what, she was going to stop at nothing in order to get it. She ruled the