Gender & Society

After reading the Orestian Trilogy I wondered how I was going to be able to write a paper relating or to our readings in class. Most of the readings have been very interesting, even though long, but these Greek tragedies were very hard to grasp. The plots were not boring by any means but the way it was written made it hard for me to follow events. I decided to focus on the subject of murder and the significance of it in these plays and our other readings.
At the beginning of Agamemnon, Agamemnon and Menelaus have returned home after the fall of Troy at their hands. During this time Agamemnon had also sacrificed his oldest daughter, Iphigenia, so he would be able to successfully fell Troy. Awaiting his return is his wife, Clytemnestra who has entered into an adulterous relationship in his absence with one of his sworn enemies. She appears to anxiously waiting for her husband’s return but is planning to avenge the sacrificial slaying of their daughter by murdering her husband. Involved with her in this treachery is her lover, Aegisthus, who is her husband’s cousin. The verse goes on to state, “For in the home a dreadful anger awaits. It does not forget and cannot be appeased. Its treachery controls the house, waiting to avenge a slaughtered child.” They plot Agamemnon’s murder and Clytemnestra violently kills both him and Cassandra, the prophetess who he has brought back as a slave and concubine.