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Revenge And Violence In Agamemnon

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Is murder still murder if there’s a justifiable cause? Is it ok to sympathize with a murder? While most side with justice for moral’s sake, there’s no denying the sense of satisfaction when an unpleasant character in a work of fiction is cut down . Is someone’s bad attitude a free pass for murder? Of course not, but that’s the luxury of fiction. As I read the Orestes I was introduced to Clytemnestra. While trying to portray the role of the loving wife, she sat on the throne of Argos plotting her husband, Agamemnon, demise. We see Clytemnestra’s character evolve from the intelligent trickster to the personification of the phrase, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” But she didn’t just wake up with murder on her mind, she had a multiplicity of motives. Jealousy, lust ,revenge and thirst for power were just a few of the innumerable motives that influenced her to kill Agamemnon. Her use manipulation and her social status allow her to get away with murder, you could quote the lyrics of Michael Jackson in saying Agamemnon was “struck by a smooth criminal.”
Right in beginning of Agamemnon we are given the first motive through foreshadowing. The chorus proclaims in line 153, “For the terror returns like sickness to lurk in the house; the secret anger remembers the child that shall be avenged.” Clytemnestra’s first and purest motive is, revenge for her daughter ,Iphigenia’s, death at the hands of Agamemnon. Even though she isn’t the best mother to Orestes and Electra, it’s

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