Aeschylus

1
Aeschylus Agamemnon Characters

• Agamemnon--king of Argos back from Troy
• Clytaemnestra--his wife
• Aegisthus--his cousin and his wifes lover
• Cassandra--daughter of Priam now Agamemnons
  slave once lover of Apollo, given gift of
  prophecy by him
• Watchman--citizen loyal to Agamemnon
• Herald--returns to Argos with Agamemnon loyal to
  Agamemnon
• Chorus of old men--too old to go fight in Troy
  loyal to Agamemnon

2
Aeschylus Agamemnon Characters

• Characters missing from the action
• Iphigenia--sacrificed by her father Agamemnon
• Orestes--who will return to avenge his father
• Helen--whom the chorus blames for the war
• Menelaus--whose presence could have saved his
  brother Agamemnon
• Thyestes--father of Aegisthus wronged by his
  brother Atreus, father of Agamemnon
• Calchas--seer who demanded the death of Iphigenia
  to satisfy the goddess Artemis
• the Furies--goddesses who enforce revenge

3
Agamemnon Recurring Imagery

• Nets and Traps
• The characters all speak of nets that they use to
  trap their enemies, without realizing that others
  are planning traps for them.
• Only the audience sees the big picture the
  interlocking web of traps in which all are caught.

• Light dawning out of darkness
• From the opening lines, in which the watch-man
  sees the signal fires from Troy, the play hopes
  for light to replace the darkness in which
  everyone finds himself or herself.
• The light doesnt come until the end of the
  trilogy.

4
Agamemnon Politics Not As Usual

• The trilogy opens in a world in which wrong-
  doing is punished by those wronged.
• The shortcomings of this system come to a head in
  The House of Atreus, caught up for generations in
  an unending web of revenge.
• Orestes exemplifies the shortcomings of private
  revenge when he must kill his mother to avenge
  his father.
• The trilogy ends in a world in which private
  revenge has been replaced by public justice.
• Murder becomes the business of the city-state,
  not the next-of-kin, and revenge is stopped.

5
Agamemnon Choose your interpretationTwo
traditional ways of reading this play

• Agamemnon as a traditional tragic hero
• Aga. falls from happiness to death because of his
  pride.
• This pride, or equating oneself with the gods,
  seen when he walks on the crimson cloths.

• Agamemnon as victim of his ancestors sins
• Aga. as part of a long chain of men paying for
  Tantalus and Atreus sins against the gods and
  against kin.
• Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus become agents of
  divine wrath.

6
Agamemnon and Lysistrata differences

• Differences based on genre tragedy vs. comedy
• tragedy
• begins in happiness
• upper class characters
• criticizes status quo by portraying weaknesses of
  ruling class
• comedy
• begins in unhappiness
• characters from many social class levels
• reinforces traditional values and status quo
  very conservative

• Differences based on time 456 vs. 411 B.C.
• more than 2 actors on stage for some scenes
• more spoken dialogue
• more brief, conversational exchanges--real
  dialogue
• fewer long choral odes
• more stage movement drama becomes more physical
  and less verbal
• less emphasis on long speeches that describe
  offstage actions
• innovation of two chori