Love And Love : The Value Of Love

In Homer’s classics lliad, the son of Atreus and the brother of Menelaus, Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae and commander of the Greek forces in the Trojan War. However, his personal features did not deserve such a high status. The character of Agamemnon is depicted by homer as headstrong, passionate, stubborn, quick to anger and hard to placate. More importantly, he is very arrogant and it is the main factor to cause his tragic ending. I think Agamemnon is an arrogant king because he is selfish and he disrespect to Achilles.

Given the immense popularity of the myth of the Trojan War, many authors adapt its plot in order to highlight certain themes of life. Often, authors reinterpret the role of Helen of Troy, for whom the war was fought, in order to retell the story, since she plays such a titular part in it. Especially in the classic playwright Aeschylus’ tragedy Agamemnon and the lyric poet Sappho’s poems does Helen’s portrayal lead to different interpretations of the outcome of the traditional myth. Although both authors present Helen of Troy as a symbol of passion, Sappho envisions her as a noble force driven by the divine law of love, while Aeschylus depicts Helen to embody the fruitless, lust-driven struggle against Fate.

The women in Agamemnon are as powerful as men but slaves to the divine. Clytemnestra’s early sacrifices parallel her vengeful slaughter of Agamemnon. After Clytemnestra makes sacrifices in celebration of Greece’s victory, the chorus cries, “hope glows through your victims” (Agamemnon, 658). They reference both hope for Greece 's victory and hope for avenging Iphigenia 's death. Sacrifices of thanksgiving make Clytemnestra an ambassador of victory and the sacrifice of Agamemnon makes her an ambassador of Justice. Agamemnon’s slaughter is an act in the name of heavenly Justice; it is a retributive sacrifice to Fate. Despite its moral significance, the murder of the war hero invokes a cycle of death within the house of Agamemnon. Like the

Both Clytemnestra and Antigone are driven by their passionate transgressions and desires due to conflicts within their families, and they are incapable of bearing the consequences they bring upon their nations and societies. There are times when personal sacrifices are necessary to the greater social progress, and the death of Iphigenia is an example in which case her death contributes to the victory of the Greek army. Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army, decides to sacrifice the life of his own daughter in exchange of the wind that carries the Greek army to the land of Troy, which eventually leads to a glorious victory. However, Clytemnestra is overwhelmed by the death of her daughter, and she is not capable of perceiving the death of Iphigenia as a sacrifice to secure the Greeks’ victory with help from the Gods. Her husband Agamemnon, who lies to Iphigenia and sends her

She helped him in every way possible in his quest for the Golden Fleece, “Her heart on fire with passionate love for Jason... But now there’s hatred everywhere. Love is diseased.” (1) However, in a tragedy, the hero is supposed to make a single mistake which ultimately leads to their downfall. In this case, Medea is not a heroic character as she is a sorceress, murders her brother, and her own children. The hamartia is intended to bring down a character of high morality, but Medea can be viewed as a wholly evil character who is not guided by any moral principles. She is also manipulative and deceptive in the way that she treats the men around her, Creon, Aegeus, and Jason, while involving them in her plan for revenge. Euripides has shown this aspect of her personality through lines such as “Do you think that I would have fawned on that man unless I had some end to gain or profit in it?” (12) and “by a trick I may kill the king’s daughter” (25)

What Price Glory? was the title of a Maxwell Anderson play about World War I. Although the Oresteia deals with the period following a much different war, the same question can be asked of it. In the trilogy Aeschylus presents the reader with a stunning example of ancient Greek society, in which warrior ideals were firmly held, and glory in battle was considered the supreme good. The question of moral justification in the trilogy brings in many complex issues, but all of them revolve around the construction of Greek society and the role of different individuals in this system. Two of the most extraordinary characters are the personages of Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra. This couple

Medea and Agaue, the tragic heroes of Euripides’ Medea and Bacchae, represent similar ideas. For both plays, the plot focuses on those two characters’ attainment of vengeance, so that their desire for a form of retribution is the primary driving force behind the plays’ conflicts. In each case, the revenges taken by Medea and Agaue are the results of their acting on their most basic, instinctual emotions without the self-control given by a more reasoned nature. Accordingly, the women and their pursuit of revenge become representative of the emotional side of human thinking. The characters that Medea and Agaue eventually destroy, Jason and Pentheus, support and represent reason, civilization, and ambition. As these male characters

In Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, written in the 3rd Century BC, the character Medea’s complexity intrigues, enchants and horrifies us. Her passionate dedication to Jason and, consequently, the failure of their marriage, leads Medea to commit multiple horrific acts. She plans and commits the murders of numerous people, including her own two sons. However, it is not Medea’s free will that leads her to commit these actions. Medea’s decisions are not a consequence of her own cruelty, but of her desperation, since her free will has been stolen by men around her. Medea is an archetype of a woman betrayed, who sacrifices her own power for the goal of another in the name of love, of a marriage gone wrong. Who has not known of an intelligent woman who fell in love, gave up her opportunities to make the success of her husband possible, only to be thrown away for a younger and more beautiful woman? Apollonius immerses Medea in a story of revenge, war and bloodshed. At its core though, Medea’s own story is about betrayal and being an outsider. Medea should not be identified as a savage, but as a symbol of what can occur when an unbearably distressed person is oppressed and outcast by their family, husband, and society.

Agamemnon emerges as a rational general and king with his heart-wrenching decision to sacrifice his daughter; a decision that Cyltemnestra cannot accept nor understand. Agamemnon’s level of moral development rises to the highest level of Principled Conscious as he was able to put the numerous lives of men in the army before the one life in his daughter. (Kohlberg) “I loathe the kind of kinship that pours pain / into both hearts. But we have arrived / at a fatal place: a compulsion absolute / forces the slaughter of my child.” (510-513) Agamemnon admits there is no choice for it will either be him or the army who will sacrifice

Medea: A Motivated Woman Characters in Greek tragedies are usually pawns in the gods and goddesses’ games. However, Euripides elucidates the role that human beings play in creating and changing their fate. Their actions can either help them triumph against foes (both internal and external) or lead to their descent into madness, despair, and malevolence. In his play, Medea, the titular character represents man’s active role in shaping their destiny through the delineation of Medea’s motivations, the destructive role of revenge in the overall schema of the story, and the dialogue between Medea and Jason.

In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Antigone, war functions to emphasize the strength of love. Scenes that allude to the power of love only occur because Sophocles has set the play to be after a war. Sophocles depicts a war in which brothers spill each others blood on the battlefield. Though filial love is broken between the Eteocles and Polyneices, Antigone’s love still remains for her two brothers. War highlights the shortcomings and tenacity of love through the deaths of Eteocles and Polyneices, Antigone’s perseverance and civil disobedience in the name of love, and the suicides of Haimon and his mother Eurydice. Sophocles not only alludes to the power of love, but the way in which untamed love can

The quest for love is a powerful quest that all of us go through in life. From the time children are born they are pressured from parents, peers, and pop culture to find that special someone who will help make their life complete. They go on dates and try on various personas in order to acquire an understanding as to who they want to eventually marry and spend a lifetime with. Yet, in western society this is primarily an individual effort. The idea of having one’s parent choose who they will spend the rest of their life with is a repulsive idea to most, yet would that not be the wisest course of action? This concept is also found in the text Romeo and Juliet. Parents should choose who their child should marry because they can choose from a more logical standpoint, remove choice anxiety from the child, and they can help them avoid emotionally rash decisions.

The love and affection plays very important role in the life of every child. However, Virmati was not enough fortunate to get love and affection from her parents. She yearns for it. Manju Kapur explores Virmati’s yearning for love and affection in the following lines:

I wake up at 6:30 every morning jump in the shower, put on some clothes, and slap that smile on my face that my mom reminds me of every morning. This is how this school year has begun and maybe will continue to go. I’m hiding behind this curtain 24/7 trying to hide the emotion of how I really feel every day. It wasn’t always this way though. About two months ago I hopped on a plan to face a new adventure where I was hoping to find my myself and discover my future. I learned a lot over this month away from home. I learned what it meant to live for one purpose, and know that love is something greater than our understanding of it, and that we may never face on earth. I developed a sense of wonder for purpose and passion. Little did I know that this month would fly by and after this spiritual high came down the test would begin.

Far too often, we misuse or hear other people misuse the word love. We use the word love so freely, that we commonly use it when saying things such as “I love going to the movies” or “I love this apple pie”. When we use the word love in this context, we are using it without understanding the true meaning, the way God intended us to. So, what is love, and what is the significance of love to God?