Gender Issues in Aeschylus

Paper Summary:

Examines the relevance of gender-specific themes in the three plays of the ORESTEIA trilogy by Aeschylus. AGAMEMNON, THE LIBATION BEARERS (CHOEPHORIA) & EUMENIDIS (FURIES). Discusses curse of the House of Atreus & the Trojan War. Plots. Characters; their motivations, actions & relationships. The important role Agamemnon plays in sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia, which sets the tragedy of the triology into motion.

From the Paper:

"This research analyzes gender issues in Aeschylus's Oresteia trilogy, comprising the plays Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi), and Eumenides. The relevance of gender-specific themes that emerge in the plays will be discussed.


The Oresteia cannot be understood without reference to the curse of the house of Atreus of Argos, which is bound up with the legend of the Trojan war. The curse began when Atreus killed sons of his brother Thyestes, who had seduced Atreus's wife. After a banquet in which Atreus fed Thyestes's children to him, Thyestes laid a curse on Atreus's descendants. Atreus's two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus, married two sisters, Clytemnestra and Helen, respectively, and when Helen either eloped with or was abducted by Paris to Troy, Agamemnon, like Menelaus, assembled an army of Greeks and prepared to sail for Troy. But that..."

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