Tragic Propaganda: Aeschylus? Intentions Essay, Research Paper

Tragic Propaganda: Aeschylus? Purposes

Language is Aeschylus & # 8217 ; steamroller: he uses dramatic, advanced words to drive an image into the head of his audience. Clytaemestra, ill-famed as a scoundrel or possibly an anti- heroine, efficaciously acts as a medium for Aeschylus? superb rhetoric in Agamemnon. Clytaemestra? s rhetoric non merely invokes graphic imagination, but besides confuses and deviants domains of logic and rhetoric: forfeit with slaying, liquids with fabric, and blood with vino. These images overturn the values and traditions of her society, symbolized by the chorus, by fall ining domains that were customarily kept separate. Aeschylus? perversion of values through the confusion of rhetorical domains gives Clytaemestra ultimate power in the drama and throughout the trilogy.

One of the ways Aeschylus physiques Clytaemestra? s power at the drama & # 8217 ; s flood tide is through the involution of slaying depicted as a forfeit. The ritual forfeit, a sphage, served as a agency of purification in antiquity ( Lebek 80 ) . In Agamemnon, the symbolic act of forfeit becomes corrupted and equated with slaying. Death, as a forfeit, is a changeless subject. It has been alluded to many times before Agamemnon & # 8217 ; s death, ever in the signifier of ritual forfeit, but ne’er as slaying. The most obvious illustration is the reference of Iphigenia & # 8217 ; s forfeit. Therefore, by the clip the audience comprehends Clytaemestra & # 8217 ; s homicidal act, it has seen a case in point set for slaying mistaken as forfeit. Clytaemestra boldly presents her place to the chorus: ? I struck him twice. In two great calls of torment he buckled at the articulatio genuss and fell. When he was down I struck him the 3rd blow, in thanks and fear to Zeus the Godhead of dead work forces underneath the ground. ? She continues her supplication, about enjoying in what she has done: ? ? and as he died he spattered me with the dark ruddy and violent goaded rain of acrimonious savored blood to do me glad, as gardens stand among the showers of God in glorification at the birthtime of the buds? ( 1389-1394 ) . The three homicidal blows that Clytaemestra work stoppages allude to the three libations offered during a normal forfeit. Typically, one would offer three libations of vino: foremost to the Olympians, so to the Chthonians, and eventually to Zeus, the Savior ( Lebek 1-7 ) . Clytaemestra corrupts the ritual forfeit on several histories. She offers blood instead than wine, sacrifices a male monarch instead than an animate being, and confuses the stairss of the sacrificial rite.

The first corruptness of the rite is the offering of blood instead than vino. It is non the first clip that human remains have been offered for ritual banquet alternatively of carnal 1s ; the audience rapidly remembers the banquet of Atreus, possibly the ultimate symbol of the impiousness of the Atreides. By offering Agamemnon & # 8217 ; s blood as vino, Clytaemestra makes a connexion with the banquet a coevals earlier. The 2nd corruptness concerns what is being sacrificed. Rather than killing some caprine animal or bull, Clytaemestra murders her hubby and male monarch. Again, a individual takes the topographic point of an animate being, and once more, the audience is reminded of an earlier forfeit. Here we are ironically drawn back in clip. Iphigenia, with her Crocus sativus robes fluxing around her, most likely begged her male parent for her life. The image is strikingly similar to what we, the audience, would see: Agamemnon lying dead, his red robes fluxing around him, with Clytaemestra standing in cold blood exultant over him. Finally, she does non offer her forfeit to Zeus the Savior, but instead Zeus, who guards dead psyches. In making so, she has corrupted the ritual forfeit on all degrees. She has perverted the libation, the sacrificial victim, and the object of the forfeit. She has inverted the nature of the Gods, every bit good as adult male, uncovering her true nature.

Aeschylus besides deliberately confuses certain basic domains of words. Clytaemestra groups liquids and fabrics by association, confounding one for the other. The rugs that Agamemnon treads on, for illustration, can be seen as a trail of blood. Earlier, the chorus mentions the robes of Iphigenia pouring to the land ( 239-240 ) . As she lies horizontally on the communion table with her robes draped around her, Crocus sativus in colour, Agamemnon sacrifices her for the interest of his ain personal docket ( sailing to Ilium safely ) . The thought of liquids and fabrics, of fluxing and pouring, has been linked both to her forfeit and to the expletive upon the Atreides, for both are mentioned in the old line ( 236 ) . The subject is reinforced when Clytaemestra refers to the rugs as & # 8220 ; a red way & # 8221 ; ( 911 ) and mentions its colourings as & # 8220 ; the purple sludge wherein our garments shall be dipped & # 8221 ; ( 960 ) . This scene is besides a cardinal lingual turning point. Up to this point, forfeit and portents have been linked with fabrics ; now the construct of linguistic communication as a web, a trap, is layered upon these other thoughts.

Clytaemestra besides confuses birthrate with decease in the presence of Agamemnon?

s forfeit. As Agamemnon’s blood sprays across her face, she describes the consequences of her actions in footings of birthrate and natural premium: ? Therefore he went down and the life struggled out of him, ? as gardens stand among the showers of God in glorification at the birthtime of the buds. ? ( 1389-1392 ) . She has non merely upside-down society– she has inverted nature every bit good. As she did with faith, she has crossed boundary lines once more, conveying birth and birthrate into a description of bloody decease. It is, rather merely, a horrifically impossible scene.

One concluding image that is used in the presence of forfeits is that of cookery, feeding and imbibing, which is besides related to that of banqueting. Immediately after Agamemnon & # 8217 ; s slaying, Clytaemestra says ( 1395- 98 ) : ? But if it is suiting to pour a libation for the dead, so this is well-ordered, and really merely. Having filled this accurst bowl of immoralities in the house, he himself drinks of them, coming home. ? Although this address besides contains elements of spiritual rites and libations, it besides refers to the actions of imbibing and consuming. Here Agamemnon drinks what he deserves: decease. In lines 1435-37, Clytaemestra references that Aegisthus makes the fire burn on her fireplace ; once more, while this is a simple metaphor for a family, it besides brings to mind the fire that roasted Thyestes & # 8217 ; kids, and once more we have a mention to banqueting. A peculiarly interesting metaphor is given at the terminal of this address, when Clytaemestra says that the deceases of Agamemnon and Cassandra provide her bed with an excess gusto or delectation. The Grecian word used here is paropsonema ( 1447 ) ( Peradatto 390-93 ) , a instead uneven word to utilize in this context unless one considers the layering of images that occurs: it means to derive an excess gusto or to arouse extra pleasance from a repast.

Clytaemestra has efficaciously coaxed the chorus by transforming the coarseness and ferociousness of her title into the methodical and necessary stairss of forfeit. As a queen and a female parent, Clytaemestra represents the pinnacle and basis of society itself. As queen, she regulations in her hubby & # 8217 ; s absence, commanding all legal and spiritual facets of her metropolis. As a female parent, she is the centre of private life, giving birth to future male monarchs and citizens and pull offing her hubby & # 8217 ; s family. Yet, Clytaemestra takes these two places and inverts them by her workss and descriptions. Therefore we see that Clytaemestra? s words give her power and immortality ; She remains ubiquitous throughout the trilogy as the Furies. The rages become the manifestation of her presence, which before Aeschylus? Oresteia was unheard of as a dramatic construct ( Peradatto 387 ) .

Clytaemestra has besides perverted two new, yet every bit of import domains of thought and Son: the domestic domain and the province. These domains, which are closely linked to muliebrity and maleness, become intertwined as Clytaemestra takes on a masculine function. In fact, she is frequently depicted as a male: ? ? to such stop a lady? s male strength of bosom? ( 10- 11 ) . The relationship between the male and the female is anything but dynamic, doing the perverse province of the relationship between Clytaemestra and Agamemnon unnatural ; it merely can non be in Aeschylus? society. The Oresteia, in consequence, perpetuates traditional ideals ; the values assigned to the & # 8220 ; good & # 8221 ; female characters, such as Elektra, embody the ethical motives of the governing work forces, while the existent sentiments and positions of adult females are suppressed. Drama, for the Greeks, was a agency of educating the citizens of the polis, non simply the male citizens, but the female 1s every bit good. Aeschylus & # 8217 ; intervention of adult females may be interpreted as an illustration of how non to move ( for adult females ) and what actions to take ( for work forces ) . Furthermore, the Oresteia becomes a societal commentary on the struggle between responsibility to the province and responsibility to the household. The concluding declaration, Oresetes? test in the Eumenides, restores the rightful order to the polis and suggests that the province or the male has power over the female and her domestic domain, the household. The Oresteia can hence be looked upon as a piece of propaganda meant to cement the traditional functions of work forces and adult females in Grecian society.

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