Orestia
Ancient legends are known throughout the world and retold in versions generation after generation. Authors take an old story and reimagine it and reinvent it to fit the perspective of their own generation. The first known version of the Agamemnon story comes from The Odyssey. In Homer's book, The Odyssey, the author relates the story of King Agamemnon and his untimely death, as well as the resulting familial tragedy that follows that event. In each version, Agamemnon was a king who returned from the war in Troy to his, supposed, loving wife and family. Unfortunately, his wife is not so happy for his return. This queen, named Clytemnestra, is unwilling to give up sole power of their kingdom. This is the point in the story where versions change the order of events and the various players in the game. The subsequent versions of this same story change certain details in order to prove the intended point of the author of that work. In Greek mythology, there is a great difference between the concepts of vengeance the need for revenge. Vengeance is a strong desire which overcomes all other emotions or desires in the need for the act of revenge. In all versions, the need for vengeance and the need for revenge are counterpointed with the filial duties of a son. In Anne Carson's version of the story, told in her book, An Oresteia, the author takes these basic plot points and alters other moments in order to support her own perspective of that story.
The rest of the story goes like this: Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, murder her husband and his prize from the wars, the cursed seer Cassandra. It is not only for power that Clytemnestra wishes her husband dead. Agamemnon sacrificed...
Aeschylus - the Oresteia (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers and Eumenides) The Oresteia offers the reader a close and intensive immersion with a truly pained universe of suffering: each play still has at its core a sense of flush of promise and vibrancy of Athens that was pushing forth and evolving into greatness. Even so, the author Aeschylus is able to captures a sense of the undercurrents of the primal vengeance that still
In the second part, the role of Clytemnestra changes somewhat, but she is still depicted as a weak woman. The weakness of her position in society is further illustrated by the fact that her son, Orestes, confesses freely to his mother's murder, and also that he never shows any remorse. It is clear that to Orestes, his father, not his mother, is of importance to him, that he finally
Oresteia story, as trilogy of events written by Aeschylus, revolves around revenge. In the first sequel, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra murders both her husband Agamemnon and his concubine, Cassandra, a priestess of the Greek god, Apollo. Cassandra had received prophecy of her imminent murder as well as future events that will befall the House of Atreus, but she had been restrained by Apollo from publicizing her vision since she had rejected his
Gradually the Greek hero recognizes (peripeteia) that his visitors are the hated Greeks who once abandoned him, in disguise. Philoctetes denounces the foul plot and demands back his bow, realizing once again he is alone in the world. (anagnorisis) In Euripides, "Hippolytus," pity and fear (pathos) is evoked by Phaedra's unbridled passion for her stepson Hippolytus. The recognition element of the drama (peripeteia) comes when both Phaedra and Hippolytus see
Clearly, there are more characters in these three plays individually and together than in Prometheus Bound, and the ethos of individual characters is maintained so that their character is consistent through the three plays. This differs from what might be seen in the three plays by Sophocles about Oedipus, but Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone were not linked and were indeed each part of different trilogies of plays
Mourning Becomes Electra It must have come as something of a shock for the original audience of Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra in 1931 to take their seats, open their programs, and discover that this extremely lengthy trilogy of plays does not actually contain a character named "Electra." This may seem like an obvious point, but it is one worth considering as we approach O'Neill's American analogue to the Oresteia of
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