preview

Summary Of The Net Imagery In Oresteia

Decent Essays

In the Oresteia, revenge drives the characters to act. Although they call it justice, it is not. Aeschylus uses net imagery to symbolize faith and destiny. When Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon and Cassandra, the net imagery acts as a symbol of terrible fate. However, then fate reverse. Now, Orestes is caught in Apollo’s net and kills his own mother. Lastly, Athene changes the meaning of the net from one of chaos to that of order and justice. These uses of the net imagery help the reader focus on a crucial theme in the play: the superiority of a formal justice system to one based on the individual quest for revenge by progressively altering the nets meaning and its affect on those around it.
Clytemnestra’s use of the net imagery focuses the reader on the drawback, that is, collateral damage, of a justice system that is based on the individual quest for revenge by emphasizing the collateral damage associated with revenge. As she stands over the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra she says: “I wrapped in a great net- not a fish could have slipped from the shoal” (69). Involving the shoal in Clytemnestra’s speech explains that with every revenge quest there are innocent people who suffer the repercussions. An avenger does not consider the bystanders surrounding the guilty person. Clytemnestra states that the net was so large that the fish could not escape the shoal. If the fish’s fate is to be caught in the net yet it cannot escape the shoal, that means the shoal suffers the same

Get Access