The Conflict in The Eumenides of The Oresteia In The Eumenides, the third book of The Oresteia, there exists a strong rivalry between the Furies and the god Apollo; from the moment of their first confrontation in Apollo’s temple at Delphi, it is clear that the god and the spirits are opposing forces. Their actions bring them into direct conflict, and both of them are stubbornly set on achieving their respective goals while at the same time interfering with or preventing the actions of the other
The War-of the-Sexes in Eumenides In this essay I will examine the war-of the-sexes taking place in The Eumenides, the final play of The Oresteia. The plot of The Eumenides pits Orestes and Apollo (representing the male gods and, to a certain extent, male values in general) against the ghost of Clytemnestra and the Furies (equally representative of female values.) Of more vital importance, however, is whether Athene sides with the males or females throughout the play. The character of Orestes
oppositions of the trilogy; conflicts of oikos and polis, chthonic and Olympian, old and young can be assigned to female and male spheres respectively. In this essay I will look at how the polis examines itself in terms of gender by focusing on the Eumenides' exploration of the myth of matriarchy, issues of the conflict between oikos and polis and the use of speech within the polis. I will then look at how these themes are brought together in the trial and the play provides an image of resolution. Many
The Philosophy and Psychology of Sophocles’s Antigone and The Eumenides in Aeschylus’ Oresteia There is a consensus among readers of the poetry or plays written in the fifth century that the plays succeed with inspiring profound movement on the audience. The methods or reasons for the reader to be moved by a text are often disputed. Specific to tragic works the concepts of philosophy and psychology are critical elements to understand the cause of the stirred emotions of individuals who response
Oresteia - The Issue of Justice in Aeschylus' Eumenides The concept of justice is manifested through the three plays of Aeschylus' Oresteia. The old tradition of justice, the private blood feud, caused an ungoverned succession of violent acts that spiralled uncontrollably. Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's lover, is introduced in Agamemnon; he desires vengeance for the plot contrived by Agamemnon's father (Ag: 1605-1611).1 Neither Agamemnon nor Aegisthus took part in this "plot" and yet as the chorus
Are the characters in the story destroyed by themselves or by the necessity of the deeds that are carried out? These are some of the questions I will discuss in this essay. I wish to concentrate on the end of the story as we know it, the Eumenides, with reference to character portrayal in the previous parts of the trilogy. The characters I am really interested in discussing are Klytaemnestra, the Erinyes and Orestes in particular, but am also going to make brief reference to the characters
The case against Orestes is strong. The son admits to striking down his mother, in violation of the sacred tenant of kinship. "But I came back, my years of exile weathered—killed the one who bore me, I won't deny it, killed her in revenge." (Eumenides lines 476-478) This shows that Orestes was fully aware of the act he was committing, that he willfully committed it, and that he must suffer for it. The bond between mother and child was broken when Orestes murdered Clytaemnestra. Marriage, arguably
or between principles.1 His trilogy of plays, the Oresteia, develops many conflicts that must be resolved during the action of the Eumenides, the concluding play of the trilogy. The central theme of the Oresteia is justice (dike) and in dealing with questions of justice, Aeschylus at every stage involves the gods.2 The Oresteia's climactic conflict in the Eumenides revolves around justice and the gods - opposing conceptions of justice and conflicting classes of gods. This essay will describe and
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 fully understand this passage, the reader must first grasp the Furies’ sense of justice. The Furies require Orestes’ retribution for his matricide. Unlike the contemporary view of justice, their perception
others and would try to fix the conflict. Both The Eumenides and The Bacchae depict the conflict between the rational and the irrational, yet the act and solution are presented differently. Whereas The Eumenides portrays it through killing the family by committing matricide and homicide, The Bacchae portrays it through killing the family by committing unconscious homicide driven by the desire of the forbidden. The most powerful characters in The Eumenides, starting with the Furies, everything about them
Blood Bonds, Antigone, and The Eumenides Every human on this earth has a bond to another. These bonds, as well as their significance, differ between people. This paper will focus on the bonds of marriage and blood, and their role in the plays Antigone and The Eumenides. How do they relate to each other? Is one more important than the other? How does the divine and mortal world interpret these? Through a review of the two plays and a comparison of their presentation of the bonds of blood and
In The Eumenides and Agamemnon of The Oresteia trilogy, Aeschylus constructs an over-arching metaphor for elements of the new Athenian democracy. The chorus in each play represents the people who feel under-represented and disrespected, by the society's changing values. In The Eumenides, the chorus of Furies is frustrated with the younger gods and infringements on their power; in Agamemnon the chorus fears more the control of an effective woman in Clytemnestra rather than the leadership of fruitless
Historically speaking, in most cultures, women were seen as inferior in some respect and were not given the same rights and status as their male counterparts. The play The Eumenides demonstrates the cultural divide between men and women in ancient Greece. In the story, Orestes is considered not guilty for crimes of matricide because only the male has parental status; in other words, mothers are not related to their children
was not married but instead murdered. Her sacrifice shows a separation between men and women along with failure within the household. “The glory of my house/ a father’s The Furies, full of rage, are transformed into the Eumenides by Athena. Their transformation into the Eumenides restores the balance of Athens into the way it was before the death of Iphigenia. It is interesting that Athena is on the side of Orestes. She relates more with men and states that she honors them in all things but marriage
paternity, but she allows compromise by never fully admitting that Clytemnestra's murder was morally justified. Initially, Athena announces, "I approve the male in all things... Therefore I shall not give greater weight to the death of a woman" (Eumenides 737-739). This is Athena's judgment, and it sets Orestes free not on the basis that he acted justly, but on the basis that she can "not give greater weight to the death of a woman." By using litotes, Athena belies sympathy for the female in her seemingly
coming together of two different times, and because of that transition, from primitive to civilized, tension builds and breaks, which causes the tragic events of The Oresteia throughout the three plays: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides. In the introduction, “The Serpent and the Eagle”, written by Robert Fagles and W. B. Stanford, they write that the beginning of Agamemnon sets the tone and “rhythm” of the entire trilogy: “We begin in dark suspense: we are waiting for the light
Across different works like Virgil’s Aeneid and Aeschylus’ Eumenides, In these representations of monsters, the initial relationship between gods and monsters is simple: all monsters derived from the gods. However, as soon as distinguishing features set the monsters apart, they prove Clay’s point that monsters are
periods, because religion was, and always has been, a huge part of their culture. The religious view of Athenians before the Peloponnesian War can be best demonstrated by the portrayal of interaction between men and Gods in Aeschylus’ work, The Eumenides. From the first scene, when “The doors of the temple open and show Orestes surrounded by the sleeping Furies, Apollo and Hermes beside him” (Aeschylus, 137), one can see that in Aeschylus’ eyes, Gods and Goddesses are not something distant and unreachable
Civilization in The Oresteia and Paradise Lost The continual search for a perfect civilization marks the history of human progress. From Plato to Locke to Marx, man has sought to order society to provide justice for himself and his children. In this quest for paradise, myths of primitivity help describe how social institutions can direct humans away from their temptations toward higher goals. In Aeschylus' The Oresteia and John Milton's Paradise Lost, human civilization is viewed as an
In Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose presents a play on criminal justice that comments on modern justice as a whole. He suggests equality as a standard for justice. While equality is the minimum that a person deserves, the scenario that Rose illustrates in Twelve Angry Men shows that sometimes people do not receive that minimum. The lack of equality brings about other elements of justice to make up for and build upon it. Equality seems to spur the pursuit of justice, while raising the ever perplexing