Agamemnon and Character Analysis

¶ … Character and Personality Traits of Agamemnon

Agamemnon's virtue of tolerance and liberalism turns out to be his weakness as a king.

Aeschylus' play Agamemnon is actually not the first performance of the story. The tale of Agamemnon's return from Troy and consequent death is handled in Pindar, Hesiod, Homer, Stesichorus, in addition to other poets and was quite familiar to the Athenian audience watching Aeschylus. Aeschylus, however, picks and merges these customs, expanding a simple tale of betrayal and murder by providing the essential characters with reasonable motives, not only at the human, but also divine level. This gives him the opportunity to come up with a play founded on tragic disagreements that are way more complicated than those in the mythological sources that he utilizes. Apart from minor details, we see Aeschylus making modifications in the background accounts of the characters before the major action of the play via the details given in the parados. The chorus' very first statement of Agamemnon presents to us an essential adjustment: Menelaus and "Agamemnon, my lord, twin throned, twin sceptered, in twofold power" (Fong, n.d.).

Agamemnon, son to Atreus, mutual king of Argos, is the head of the expedition, and is accompanied by his daughter Iphigenia. However, the goddess Artemis is mad for causes not even identified, and has stranded the 1000-ship voyage at Aulis, out to sea. This shall not just hinder the accomplishment of Zeus's orders, but there shall finally be issues with water and food for the huge marine army. The Calchas prophet, on the ship of Agamemnon, presumes that the only solution for the state of affairs is to offer the daughter of Agamemnon as a sacrifice to appease the goddess. The other way out is the slow death through starving everybody in the voyage. After lots of thought, Agamemnon has his daughter sacrificed. We ought to be quite cautious regarding asking for complete motivational clarifications from the gods, for we observe that Agamemnon possesses no desire of blaming them for anything, but little he comprehends their will. Actually, he does not even state the order of Zeus to castigate Troy, however, just stresses the horror of the suggested sacrifice (Cowley, n.d.).

Ethical dilemma discussions establish numerous significant assumptions regarding the state of affairs, together with its participants that we can deal with by directly viewing Agamemnon. Our very first response is that Agamemnon is basically unfortunate to find himself amidst the desires of two gods in competition; we might think that he ought to view himself as the reluctant tool of their dispute, but that the outcome is ethically similar as if Artemis himself had struck down Iphigenia without any human participation. However, the chorus whilst accepting her death as a "yoke of necessity," also continues to hold Agamemnon responsible for the sacrifice (Cowley, n.d.). One thing is however true, that Agamemnon, is not to blame for finding himself in the circumstances, and thus it cannot be reduced to MacIntyre's first non-dilemmatic state. Secondly, we can notice that Iphigenia's sacrifice is truly preferable with regards to Agamemnon's sense of identity as mainly a military commander. It is certainly difficult to imagine that Agamemnon would have sensibly picked any other means (Cowley, n.d.).

Agamemnon, however, ought not to be viewed as a meager puppet; he is permitted to think and make a decision, he is aware of what he is doing, he knows all the applicable aspects of the circumstance, and he is not being physically forced or individually threatened. His initial reaction is infuriation and sorrow. His following descriptions displays that he is completely aware of all the relevant outcomes, however, most significantly, already displays him leaning one way instead of the other. According to Nussbaum (1986), this situation is comparable to that of the plight of Abraham, divinely commanded to give his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. In case we overlook the feeling we get regarding the mean, conceited gods in both the biblical and Agamemnon's tales, together with the entire question of the dependability of the source of the command, the comparison is applicable up to a certain level: a good man is commanded to end the life of his own child, or suffer the heavier guilt of sin and defiance (Cowley, n.d.).