LIT 231/LIT 230
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Eumenides

We’re skipping The Libation Bearers, the middle play in the Oresteia.  In The Libation Bearers, Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, returns to Argos in disguise.  He is torn, because Apollo’s oracle has told him that he must avenge his father’s death, but to do so, he must kill his own mother, the woman who gave him life.  In the end, he chooses to kill his mother, because, as the Chorus puts it, “Apollo wills it so!” (Libation Bearers, line 944).  The debate between Orestes and Clytaemnestra about what he should do is well worth reading (Libation Bearers, lines 872-921).

The Eumenides, the third play of the trilogy, opens in Delphi.  The title of the play is another name for the Furies, a group of horrible goddesses who punished crimes of blood (murder of family members and the like).  Orestes has fled from the Furies to Delphi to go through a ritual purification for the murder he has committed.  Delphi was the most important temple in all of Greece, because there the Oracle had, as the Greeks believed, direct access to the gods as well as knowledge of the future.  The play opens with the Oracle praying.

Once Orestes has undergone the purification that he came to Delphi for, he escapes the Furies again and flees to Athens, city of Athena, goddess of wisdom and of defensive war.  Once Orestes arrives in Athens, Athena tries to appease the Furies by proposing that Orestes be tried for his crime.  The rest of the play is the trial of Orestes on a hill outside Athens called the Areopagus (the hill on which the Athenians traditionally held their murder trials ever after).  Pay close attention to the various arguments the characters use in the prosecution and defense of Orestes.

Choose one of the following areas as the focus of your response paper:

1. In the Oracle’s prayer at the beginning of the play, she acknowledges all the gods and goddesses who have ever been worshipped in the Delphic temple.  Note the progression.  Which god or goddess was worshipped in the temple first?  Who next?  Who next?  What does the progression of gods/goddesses tell us about who has control these days among the gods?  How do the powerful gods today differ from the powerful gods of the past?
2. What does each side in the trial of Orestes say about how things should be run?  What principles underlie each side’s position?  What values does each side espouse?  Look at a speech or two that seem to sum up each side’s stance in the trial.
3. Who (if anyone) wins the conflict that began in the Agamemnon?  What solution does Aeschylus seem to be proposing for the conflict that Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra initiated?  Is the solution a compromise, or does one side win and the other lose?  Who benefits from the result of the trial?  Who loses out?  Has anything changed at the end of the play?  Have things progressed, regressed, or stayed the same?
4. Why is the trial so important?  Aeschylus makes it the climax of his three-play cycle.  It must be pretty important to him.  Why?  What precedent does it set?  What role does it play in Greek history and culture?  How is life in Athens different after the trial from what it was before the trial?  Does the trial mark a new beginning somehow?