Clytemnestra's Role in Aeschylus' Oresteia Analyzed
This paper examines the character and role of Clytemnestra across all three plays of Aeschylus' Oresteia — the Agamemnon, the Choephoroe, and the Eumenides. Drawing on scholarship in gender studies, classical literature, and Greek mythology, the paper traces how Clytemnestra moves through roles of deception, grief, revenge, and death. Despite displaying masculine qualities and wielding persuasive power, she is repeatedly marginalized by the men around her and ultimately by the legal and divine order of the third play. The paper concludes that, although Clytemnestra acts powerfully at moments, her trajectory throughout the trilogy ultimately confirms her as a "weak" woman in the social and political order of ancient Greece.
- Introduction: Thesis: Clytemnestra ultimately plays a weak role
- Overview of the Oresteia: Plot summary of all three plays
- Clytemnestra in the Agamemnon: Powerful yet ignored; kills Agamemnon in grief
- Clytemnestra in the Choephoroe: Deceived and killed by her own children
- Clytemnestra in the Eumenides: Even in death, justice is denied her
- Conclusion: Clytemnestra as symbol of female powerlessness
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What makes this paper effective
- Provides a clear, sustained thesis — that Clytemnestra's apparent power is ultimately undermined — and returns to it in every section, giving the paper strong argumentative coherence.
- Moves chronologically through the trilogy, using each play as a distinct analytical unit while building a cumulative argument about gender and powerlessness.
- Integrates a close reading of Clytemnestra's own monologue to complicate the dominant scholarly view of her as merely "remorseless and vengeful," showing awareness of counterevidence.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates character analysis through a gendered critical lens, using Clytemnestra's speech, actions, and treatment by other characters as evidence for a broader claim about women's social roles. By contrasting how Clytemnestra is perceived (powerful, masculine) against what actually happens to her (deceived, killed, unvindicated), the paper employs irony as an analytical framework — a technique useful in literary and cultural criticism alike.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a brief introduction establishing the thesis and context, followed by a plot summary section that orients the reader. The three central analytical sections correspond to the three plays of the trilogy, tracking Clytemnestra's diminishing power across each. A conclusion synthesizes the argument and connects Clytemnestra's role to broader patterns of gender in ancient Greek society. References follow standard bibliography format.
Introduction
Over the past few decades, the role and character of Clytemnestra in Aeschylus' Oresteia, a three-part cycle of plays, has been examined by Greek historians, mythology and literature scholars, and gender sociologists alike. The Oresteia reveals a tragedy about a family bound by deceit, mourning, death, revenge, and power. Clytemnestra, the queen, shares a role in all five of these elements. Her character has been analyzed repeatedly in a search for meaning through her language and the role she performs. The speech and gender presented by Clytemnestra's role in the Oresteia have been studied in an attempt to correlate and explain the transition of the role women once had in society to the role they play in the present. This paper analyzes the role of Clytemnestra in the Oresteia and concludes that, although she was powerful and acted powerfully, Clytemnestra ultimately played the role of a weak woman in society.
Overview of the Oresteia
The Oresteia is a three-part cycle of plays: the Agamemnon, the Choephoroe, and the Eumenides. The Agamemnon sets the tone for Clytemnestra's role as a woman whose advice and words are completely disregarded by her husband. In the Agamemnon, Clytemnestra is deceived by her husband into sending him their youngest daughter, Iphigenia. Agamemnon cuts Iphigenia's throat on an altar as a sacrifice. Furthermore, Clytemnestra's advice to respect the defeated Trojan temples and people is deliberately disregarded by Agamemnon, and the city is wildly looted, destroyed, and burned. Clytemnestra finally kills Agamemnon after the Trojan War, when he returns home with a raped and captured Trojan priestess.
In the second part, the Choephoroe, Clytemnestra's son Orestes kills her in retribution for his father's death and on Apollo's advice. Clytemnestra is unable to defend herself and dies. After her death, Orestes taunts her corpse and is subsequently pursued by the Furies — the spirits of death and avengers of the underworld. Orestes flees to Delphi, Apollo's sanctuary, to escape them.
In the final play, the Eumenides, Apollo tells Orestes that he cannot save him from the Furies' rightful wrath. Orestes must instead go to Athens and plead his case before the goddess Athena. Before Athena, Orestes admits to murdering his mother, shows no remorse, and attempts to place some of the blame on Apollo, claiming Apollo commanded him to act. The Furies point out that the key distinction is that Orestes killed blood kin, while Clytemnestra killed her husband, who was not blood kin. Apollo asserts that a mother is not truly a parent to a child but merely a nurse, and that only fathers are blood kin. He uses Athena's birth from Zeus alone as proof. Apollo and Athena vote that Orestes' murder of his mother was justified. The Furies side with Clytemnestra but are outvoted, and they call upon Mother Night to witness the injustice. Mother Night determines that justice has been scorned and that terrible retribution must follow. In an attempt to forestall that retribution, Athena asks the Furies to abandon their former roles as hideous avengers and to become the Eumenides — the "kind ones." The new Eumenides accept Athena's offer, and the play ends.
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