An Examination of Clytaemnestra as a Tragic Victim of the Oresteia.

Essay by lybravyrgo923University, Bachelor'sA-, March 2004

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Clytaemnestra, although villified in the Oresteia, was in fact a moral extractor of vendetta justice who fell victim to the patriarchal Athenian society. What constitutes justice is a question that could not be given justice in one brief paper; therefore, for purposes of this paper we will use only two ideas of justice: vendetta justice and legal justice. Vendetta justice defies boundaries limiting actions and allows the extractor to make their own definition. This would encompass such theory as "An eye for an eye adn a tooth for a tooth." Meanwhile, legal justice is regulated by a governing body who makes the determination as to whether there has been an offense requiring justice, and what consititutes fair and equitable justice. The Oresteia offers two different types of justice, vendetta, as well as trial justice; however, at the time that Clytaemnestra committed the act of murder, legal justice was not being offered to her.

It is for this reason that this papers seeks to prove that Clytaemnestra is an extractor of vendetta justice, which is the only justice which she had available to her. An examination of the character of Clytaemnestra by analyzing the dialogue of Agamemnon shows that the actions of Clytaemnestra were not only justified for teh zeitgeist of the Mycenae age, but were also admirable given a woman's position in society. This strength of character is an important and undervalued commodity in a play which offered a strong, determined woman the spotlight to shine as intelligent and capable. Were Clytaemnestra's actions villainous? Certainly one might argue that this is true in today's culture; however, it does not necessarily follow that the actions of Clytaemnestra were either vile or wicked in the eyes of the Athenian culture. The Furies argue that a violation of the blood tie was...