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Women In Agamemnon Research Paper

673 Words3 Pages

Importance of women in Agamemnon

Women in Agamemnon are marginalized, excluded and silenced. On the other hand, we have to emphasize that women have a very important role, so much as to go to a war over one, an apt example of that would surely be – "Helen the Destroyer." (pg.36)
Another reason, which is certainly worth mentioning is that women have always been the greatest sacrifices in Greek mythology. The Oresteia was certainly not an exclusion, as Agamemnon sailed to victory "on the blood of a virgin." (pg. 16) - sacrificing his own daughter Iphigenia. This is a very interesting trend as the Gods always wanted the most precious thing to sacrifice before achieving victory or to complete a quest. So we can certainly assume that women had …show more content…

When a woman tries to speak out, assume leadership or have her own idea, she is dismissed as having "a man 's heart in a woman 's body..." (pg. 5). Or even when greeting her husband, she is laid-off: "Your eulogies are like my absence, too long, too much..." The Greeks are unable to get over these views – "…a woman who fears nothing – is she a woman…" (pg. 47) and cannot believe that a woman would be capable of being a good leader, or even give a speech. Being called a woman was an insult for a man as he was assigned these qualities: "Aegysthus you are a woman..." "While the King fought…" you "…polluted his wife..." and "…when he came back you made yourself scarce." (pg. 82)
In addition to that, when we figure out that Clytemnestra was right she defends herself by saying "I was laughed at." (pg. 32) even though being right, nevertheless she is immediately shut down by herald who defies her, the queen: "Are such words necessary? A Queen boasting so strangely…" (pg. 33). We can see that even the queen was disrespected just because of her …show more content…

An interesting thing surely is, that women in Greek society are judged when guilty by different standards than men. "Wound for wound, you shall pay." (pg. 72) resolves the chorus the situation after Clytemnestra is found guilty of killing Agamemnon. An interesting thing is that the chorus didn 't "…judge Agamemnon…" after he "butchered" Clytemnestra 's "daughter – like somebody else 's goat." (pg. 71), which is pointed out by the Queen – "this man here was the criminal to be punished… It never occurred to you. Why not?" (pg. 71). That is assuredly due to the fact that he was a man, and as such the laws do not apply

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