Aeschylus? Agamemnon Essay, Research Paper
Aeschylus? Agamemnon tells the story of what happened to the Greek hero Agamemnon when he returns home to Myceneae. Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, plays a powerful figure in the play because she foretells the doom of Agamemnon and of herself through visions of a curse upon his household. ?Agamemnon, you will see him dead?, (p.544, l. 1262) Cassandra tells the reader. Nobody believes anything she says and is pushed of as being a lunatic. When Agamemnon comes back to Myceneae with Cassandra as his concubine, Clytaemnestra has already planned to kill him. When Agamemnon goes inside the place, Cassandra refuses to go inside and remains outside as if in a trance. She smells blood and sees visions of Thyestes, who unknowingly ate his own children. She sees ?babies wailing?.the father gorging on their parts?. (p.540, l. 1097-99) Cassandra also sees Clytaemestra’s demise and the eventual resolution of the Oresteia as whole. She sees Clytaemnestra as ?the lioness? she beds with the wolf of when her lion goes ranging ? she will kill me?. (p. 544, l. 1277-78) In telling all her prophecies she informs the reader on more background story of how the whole bloodshed started and will eventually end. Her prophecies make the whole play more exciting as the reader knows about the imminent disaster that is going to take place.