The Power of Zeus Teleios in the Oresteia :: Aeschylus Oresteia

The Power of Zeus Teleios in the Oresteia Is the defendion in the Oresteia preordained? Is the trilogy simply a working finished of destiny and fate the ultimate telos of the events being the downfall of the house of Atreus? Are the characters in the story destroyed by themselves or by the necessity of the workings that are carried out? These are some of the questions I will discuss in this essay. I wish to concentrate on the end of the story as we know it, the Eumenides, with reference to character portrayal in the previous parts of the trilogy. The characters I am really interested in discussing are Klytaemnestra, the Erinyes and Orestes in particular, but am also going to make brief reference to the characters of Elektra and Athena. Klytaemnestra appears in all three plays in the trilogy which through repetition, for me at least, makes her the most classic character. More than anything, in the Oresteia, we watch Klytaemnestra become powerless. It is her transgression of limits1 that we see rectified. Klytaemnestra in Agamemnon is a strong and wilful woman, who relishes her part in the downfall of Agamemnon himself. She is proud of her action, accepts adept responsibility for his death at her hands she takes her vengeance against him for the death of Iphigeneia2. This is shown in lines such as I exult (A 1417) and after she kills him, you think Im some irresponsible woman? (A 1425). Aeschylus uses her to embody the powerful heroic ethic of vengeance - blood for blood. This is unusual firstly because she is a woman it would seem more appropriate to use a hero in the traditional Homeric sense to embody a heroic ethic. Secondly, we have the dichotomy between the markedly female Erinyes, visualising the nature of blood for blood in Eumenides and the act of vengeance itself - expressed in Homer as a male heroic ethic. We know this is the start of a trilogy because an audience cannot see a woman - particularly one as anti-matriarchal as Klytaemn estra - triumph over a king as famous and respected as Agamemnon. Her downfall is intrinsically tied in with his she catches herself in the great net (A 1402) and it is her struggles that merely tightened the tangle. (A 1403).