Theme Of Justice In The Oresteia

In Aeschylus' trilogy, the Greeks' justice system went through a transformation from old to new ways. In the beginning of the trilogy, the characters settle their matters, both personal and professional, with vengeance. Vengeance is when someone is harmed or killed, and either the victim, or someone close to them takes revenge on the criminal. This matter is proven in the trilogy numerous times.

Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis provides important context regarding the sacrifice of Iphigenia and Clytemnestra’s past with Agamemnon. Clytemnestra is ashamed after talking to Achilles about the wedding between him and Iphigenia that he is unaware of. After discovering Agamemnon 's true intentions, she decides that she will no longer “let shame prevent” her from seeking Achilles’ help to stop Agamemnon because “whose interests should [she] consult before [her] child’s?” (Iphigenia at Aulis 24). Her concern for Iphigenia overpowers the indignity she feels because her child’s well being is greater than her own. Both women’s anger and desire for vengeance grow as their children are endangered or harmed as “vengeance makes grief bearable” (Medea 2.55). The playwrights show each as either a good or bad woman based on if their vengeful actions are ultimately in favor of their children or not.

The female characters portrayed in Aeschylus and Sophocles’ works have considerably different personalities and roles, yet those females all have the common weaknesses of being short-sighted and stubborn. They intensify the conflicts within their families while being inconsiderate of the impacts that they may bring to their nations and societies, which leads to consequences that they are incapable of taking responsibilities for. Clytemnestra and Antigone, two major characters in their respective author’s works, possess different motivations for their deeds in the stories. While Clytemnestra is driven by the desire of revenge to murder her husband Agamemnon, Antigone acts against Creon’s will and strives to properly bury her brother. Despite having different motivations and personalities, Clytemnestra and Antigone both commit

The pursuit of justice is an endeavor that many find to be challenging and a quest itself, as one will come across various trials and complications that may stop them in their pursuit or may mislead them. As humans, we find moral correctness and righteousness a very appealing state to be in, as justice will act as a platform to satisfy the desire for this correctness. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, we meet our miserable anti-hero, Oedipus, in his pursuit for truth and righting the wrong of the plague that is affecting his people of Thebes. As he makes efforts to solve this problem, he comes to find out that he is the source of the issue, thus exposing the tragic flaw of Oedipus and effectively making this play a very effective Greek tragedy. This pursuit of righteousness ends up being the downfall of Oedipus. In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Oedipus pursues justice through his realization of his past, his interactions with various characters in the play, and comes to understand more of justice in his situation through his reactions to adversity in this play, in order to portray a questionably successful pursuit of justice.

Justice in the Oresteia Justice is often taken for granted in the world we live in today with a judicial system that gives fair punishment for most crimes. In the Oresteia justice works much differently, where there are no judges or a court system to resolve disputes, instead there is revenge. Revenge is very messy because somebody will and has to get hurt first to desire revenge, and it leads to a cycle that cannot and will not end until everybody is dead. Justice does not and cannot only be revenge because in the end nobody would be left in that system. Aeschylus' Oresteia focuses on revenge as justice, with the old system that no longer works and that someone must fix, and a new system that has

Justice in our times is almost completely different from what the ancient Greeks considered as justice. Justice, today can be defined as the quality of being just, the principle of moral rightness. In the ancient Greek era and most certainly during the time when the story of the Odyssey happened; Justice was frequently instantaneous and severe, almost unswerving. Odysseus is sometimes seen as being the one carrying out justice or being the one affected by justice. In the Odyssey, we see justice as revenge, and areas in which we can use to say that Odysseus is a just man.

Clytemnestra is Agamemnon’s wife and has been ruling Argos while he was away fighting. With help from Aegisthus, Clytemnestra made a plan to kill Agamemnon. She killed Agamemnon for the political power, for the ruthless revenge and for the curses blame. (Core 22: Series of introductory phrases using the same preposition – phrases must have balance.) Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon to avenge their daughter Iphigeneia. Agamemnon sacrifice her in order to have success in the war, but never told Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra, feeling fake sadness over her daughter’s death, felt that she was wronged and had to get back at her husband. Not only did she kill him, but she had an affair while he was away. The sacrifice is why she had the affair with Aegisthus.

Have you ever acted out in retribution for something done to you? Some examples could be if you punched someone for intentionally kicking you, or if someone deliberately hurt the feelings of someone you love and you retaliated in kind. You probably thought the punishment you received for your actions was too harsh or lenient. Many factors went into the decision of what discipline you received for this act and some were fair while others probably were not. This is true for the actions of many people in Aeschylus’s Oresteia. In each of the three plays, someone is seeking vengeance for a wrong done unto them, someone they know/love, or both. For this paper, I will be focusing on the vengeance enacted by Clytemnestra, Orestes, and the Fates. The vengeance that each person enacted was deemed just or unjust depending on many factors including the people who were doing the judging. Vengeance in Aeschylus’s Oresteia is viewed through the social lens of the society that it was enacted in. This lens is made up of the popular values, beliefs, and social conventions of the period as well as the judge’s personal views and/or experiences. These factors (such as gender and relation to the victim, as well as the presence or absence of transgressions on the characters part) lead to different opinions about the guilt of the accused individual and the individual themselves. The view of vengeance in Aeschylus’s Oresteia is very subjective.

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.

A. Yes, Eurylochus and the rest of Odysseus’s men tend to typically act in a more selfish manner than gravitate towards the notion of justice.

The position Thrasymachus takes on the definition of justice, as well as its importance in society, is one far differing from the opinions of the other interlocutors in the first book of Plato’s Republic. Embracing his role as a Sophist in Athenian society, Thrasymachus sets out to aggressively dispute Socrates’ opinion that justice is a beneficial and valuable aspect of life and the ideal society. Throughout the course of the dialogue, Thrasymachus formulates three major assertions regarding justice. These claims include his opinion that “justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger,” “it is just to obey the rulers,” and “justice is really the good of another […] and harmful to the one who obeys and serves.” Socrates

The bad actions of Clytemnestra are immediately seen in a negative way but she, at first, has avenged her daughter’s murder. What the chorus thinks of her is that she is an imposing figure, she is not noble and her information is unreliable. She is kind of underestimated and misjudged. She is presented as the bad woman but it is clear that the aim of Clytemnestra is taking her revenge. Aeschylus’ portrait of Clytemnestra can be seen as negative and positive; on one hand she seeks justice for her daughter, on the other she is completely incurable for the act of murder. She does not hide from her actions, instead she freely admits her murder and embraces the power and authority. It is through the inversion of traditional gender roles, adopting masculine speech, behaviors and activities, that she achieves her revenge for the sacrifice of Iphigenia. On one hand Clytemnestra’s revenge may have been seen as an upsetting act but on the other hand it let people (the audience) reflect on the traditional gender role of women in society. The power of Clytemnestra can be also seen through the chorus speech. It highlights her authority even if the chorus

Justice is essential, for with a lack of justice, chaos would be brought about in society. In The Eumenides, the Furies value justice without truly being just. Throughout the play, the Furies, protectors of the law, pursue Orestes because of the crime he has committed. They yearn to "trace him by his

In the Oresteia there seems to be a continuing cycle of revenge. Someone is murdered and then a relative must kill the murderer, therefore becoming a murderer himself. A new chosen one is then selected to take revenge on that person who killed before him and the cycle goes on and on. The furies also play a part in this cycle of revenge. They seek out those who kill their blood relatives and haunt them and torture them for eternity. So basically they also take revenge for the ones that have been murdered. Revenge is a continuing theme throughout the play until Athena has a hand in making it come to an end.

The concept of justice is manifested through the three plays of Aeschylus' Oresteia. The old tradition of justice, the private blood feud, caused an ungoverned succession of violent acts that spiralled uncontrollably. Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's lover, is introduced in Agamemnon; he desires vengeance for the plot contrived by Agamemnon's father (Ag: 1605-1611).1 Neither Agamemnon nor Aegisthus took part in this "plot" and yet as the chorus explains (Ag: 755-6)