Jessica Tyler

LitHum C1001x
Professor Dames
In The Oresteia, Aeschylus underlines family as a dangerous and inescapable
institution, in which past wrongs influence individuals to act in retribution, creating an
unending cycle of bloodshed. The murderers continually try to justify their actions by
citing the misdeeds of their family members, and casting their own misdeeds as attempts
to rectify the past. This always culminates disastrously, bringing about either the
individuals death, or (in the case of Orestes) unrelenting torment from a powerful deity.
In the house of Atreus, family becomes inescapable, because its heavy history and long
lineage never fail to mold a predisposition to future strife.
The trilogy opens with Clytaemestras murder of Agamemnon. While
Clytaemestra had various motives for killing her husband, the most sympathetic of them
all was Agamemnons sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia, for the cause of the Trojan
War. The Chorus describes her sacrifice, The father prayed, called to his men to lift her
with strength of hand swept in her robe aloft and prone above the altar, as you might lift a
goat for sacrificeto check the curse cried on the house of Atreus by force of bit and
speech drowned in strength (Agamemnon, 231-237). Later in the play, as Clytaemestra
describes her murder of Agamemnon to the horrified Chorus, one can note the similarity
between the manner in which Agamemnon carried out Iphigenias murder and the manner
in which Clytaemestra carried out Agamemnons murder. She recounts, That he might
not escape nor beat aside his death, as fishermen cast their huge circling nets, I spread
deadly abundance of rich robes, and caught him fast. I struck him twice. In two great
cries of agony he buckled at the knees and fell. When he was down I struck him the third

blow, in thanks and reference to Zeus the lord of dead men underneath the ground
(Agamemnon, 1381-1387). First, both victims are decked out in robes before their
murder. Present throughout the trilogy, robes not only symbolized a means of
immobilizing the victim, but also evidence of a murderous act. Most notably,
Clytaemestra portrays Agamemnons murder as if she were describing a religious
sacrifice. As she murders Agamemnon, she states thanks and reference to Zeus the lord
of men (Agamemnon, 1387), as if the act of killing her husband is carried out in order to
honor the wishes of a higher power. Similarly, Iphigenias death was first and foremost a
sacrifice, which was carried out to supplicate the goddess Artemis and to check the curse
cried on the house of Atreus (Agamemnon, 235-236). The link between Clytaemestras
perception of the murder of her husband and the reality of the situation that brought about
her daughters death suggests that Clytaemestra saw her own crime as the sacrifice of
Agamemnon and as a means of undoing the wrong committed when her daughter was
sacrificed.
A particularly interesting aspect of Clytaemestras murder is her need to justify the reason
for her crime, and a denial of responsibility for it. She states:
These being the facts, elders of Argos assembled here, be glad, if it be your pleasure; but
for me, I glory. Were it religion to pour wine above the slain, this man deserved, more than
deserved, such sacrament. He filled our cup with evil things unspeakable and now himself has
drunk it to the dregs. (Agamemnon, 1393-1398)

Clytaemestra believes that she is a heroine for having killed Agamemnon, and
even deserving of glory. She asserts that her actions were warranted because of
Agamemnons transgressions, fill(ing) our cup with evil things unspeakable, and that
she merely carried out the fate he deserved. After the Chorus reproaches her for being so
arrogant, she retorts, You can praise or blame me as you wish; it is all one to me. That

man is Agamemnon, my husband; he is dead; the work of this right hand that struck in
strength of righteousness. And that is that (Agamemnon, 1403-1406). Clytaemestra is
not intimidated by the viewpoint of the Chorus, and remains resolute in her belief that she
was in the right when she murdered Agamemnon. She further warrants her actions
through the concept of righteousness, meaning a higher standard of right and wrong,
most likely determined by the gods, which backed what she had done, and allowed her to
carry out the deed. Through these assertions, Clytaemestra attempts to defend the murder
of her husband, and remove herself from any guilt associated with the murder by
claiming herself as an instrument of fate.
Before Orestes murders Clytaemestra, he is quick to criticize her for all the
wrongs she committed against her own family, especially focusing on her adultery while
Agamemnon was fighting in the Trojan War. Come here. My purpose is to kill you over
his body. You thought him bigger than my father while he lived. Die then and sleep
beside him, since he is the man you love, and he you should have loved got only your
hate (The Libation Bearers, 903-907). When Orestes confronts Clytaemestra with her
adultery, it seems as though he focuses a disproportionate amount of attention on that
indiscretion. Even though Clytaemestras betrayal of Agamemnon was a serious
transgression, Orestes accusation of adultery is much less relevant than the larger issue at
hand: the murder of his father. Perhaps Orestes need to bring up every single crime
Clytaemestra committed against their family indicates an attempt on his part to avoid
confronting his relationship to Clytaemestra as her son. Later, Orestes even goes so far as
to express apathy for the fact that Clytaemestra is his mother, on the grounds that she sent
him away to a foreign kingdom as a child, and therefore was never truly there to nurture

him. A mother has her curse, child. Are you not afraid? No. You bore me and threw
me away, to a hard life. I sent you to a friends house. This was no throwing away. I
was born of a free father. You sold me (The Libation Bearers, 912-915). Even though
Orestes makes a valid point that Clytaemestra was never a caring mother figure to him,
he completely discounts the fact that she is still his mother by blood. In doing so, he
blatantly ignores the crime he is about to commit against a family member, and instead
avoids the issue by focusing on all the wrongs perpetrated by his victim. In this way,
Orestes tries to validate Clytaemestras murder by citing all of her transgressions.
Just as Clytaemestra rationalizes her murder of Agamemnon using the sacrifice of
Iphigenia, Orestes similarly justifies his murder of Clytaemestra by claiming that he
committed the act strictly to avenge his fathers death. In addition, Orestes attempts to
free himself from any blame by saying that he acts on behalf of the gods; by murdering
Clytaemestra, he is carrying out the fate that, as an adulteress and a murderer, she
deserves. In the scene that precedes Orestes murder of Clytaemestra, she tries numerous
ways to convince Orestes to let her live, while Orestes rejects all of her pleas, stating why
it is imperative that he carries out her murder. I think, child, that you mean to kill your
mother. No. It will be you who kill yourself. It will not be I. Take care. Your
mothers curse, like dogs, will drag you down. How shall I escape my fathers curse, if
I fail here? (The Libation Bearers, 922-925). Here, Orestes, when confronted by
Clytaemestra with the terrible fact that he wishes to kill the very person who gave birth to
him, adamantly rejects any desire to commit the crime. By declaring, It will be you who
kill yourself. It will not be I, Orestes emphasizes that it is Clytaemestras own actions
that sentence her to the fate of death, even though he must be the one to physically carry

out that sentence. When Clytaemestra retorts, reminding him that there will be grave
consequences for the crime he is about to commit- that your mothers cursewill drag
you down, Orestes responds by stating the obligation he has to obtain vengeance for the
wrongs she committed to Agamemnon. Because Agamemnon is tied to Orestes by blood,
Orestes believes that he must take action in retribution for the sins against his father, even
if it means that he will commit a crime against his blood to do so. Because of his family
ties, Orestes is trapped. He must make a choice between avenging his fathers death by
murdering his mother, or preserving his mothers life but failing to take action in
response to the crime perpetrated against his father. Regardless of which decision he
makes, Orestes must ultimately face a drastic consequence.
Despite Clytaemestras and Orestes attempts to avoid guilt for the murder of their
family members by declaring themselves as instruments of fate and bringing up the
indiscretions of their victims, neither of them escape without feeling the consequences of
their crimes. For murdering her husband, Clytaemestra must suffer by being murdered
by the hand of her son, and Orestes pays for his mothers murder by being pursued
relentlessly by the Furies, until Apollo intervenes. Because of ties to murdered family
members, both Clytaemestra and Orestes are motivated to take action to vindicate their
fallen kin, but in doing so, are forced to commit egregious acts against other members of
their family. For the house of Atreus, the crimes of the past create an endless cycle of
violence driven by the relations each aggressor has to their murdered relatives.
Ultimately, it is the desire for vengeance that leads to every characters downfall.