Aeschylus's Drama of Crime and Redemption

• explain how, in his treatment of Agamemnon's murder by his wife, Aeschylus turns a domestic tragedy into a "cosmic event."
• discuss the theme of evolutionary change, both mortal and divine, in Aeshcylus's plays.
• explain how Aeschylus uses the ancient myth of Agamemnon's doomed house to comment on Athenian democracy.

An Overview

• explain how the Oresteia defies (albeit 100 years before they were conceived) the rules of space and time set down in Aristotle's Poetics.
• explain how issues of blood vengeance and filial duty become, in the Oresteia, matters of civic law and religious ethics.
• describe the role of the chorus in each of the Oresteia's three plays.
• describe the crimes associated with the house of Atreus: from the distant ancestor Tantalus, to Agamemnon's sacrifice of his own daughter.
• explain how Cassandra's commitment to her prophetic office ultimately results in her inability to perform the duties of that office.
• summarize the plot of the Agamemnon, paying special attention to Clytemnestra's manipulation—and ultimate murder—of her husband.
• compare and contrast Clytemnestra with both Demeter and Persephone.
• discuss the "profoundly disturbing questions about the relative value of male and female lives" raised in Aeschylus's depiction of Clytemnestra.
• describe the contradictory divine forces which Orestes must confront in the Libation-Bearers.
• discuss the implications of Aeschylus's choice to make the Furies visible only to Orestes.
• discuss the binary tensions which come to a head in the trial scene of the Eumenides.
• explain why this trial scene ultimately serves to "endorse the Athenian patriarchy."
• discuss the (social) implications of Orestes' acquittal.
• explain why Athene's taming (by means of persuasion) of the Furies serves as an endorsement of Athenian democracy.
• discuss the Furies transformation into the Eumenides and their subsequent presence in the human unconscious.