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Review: An Oresteia (Translated by Anne Carson) (2009)
Interesting story. It's an easy read and I can see why this book would be an easier gateway to classical Greek plays. I would recommend this for people who want to read a short but tragic play.
Spoilers?
Story
An Oresteia covered part of the Trojan War. I assumed that the people that this play was written for would already have had some knowledge of the Trojan War, and that was why so much was not explained (specifically the background).
From a plot perspective, I think Agamemnon and Electra were more interesting than Orestes. Actually, it might have been because Orestes had too much plot, and not as much space to explore the character sentiments.
Aeschylus' Agamemnon
Agamemnon was the first of the three plays. It began with Agamemnon's return home to Argos. His wife, Clytemnestra, was plotting his death as revenge for Agamemnon killing their daughter Iphigenia, but also because if Agamemnon was dead, she could be with her lover Aegisthus.
When Agamemnon returned, Clytemnestra sang his praises, and basically played the role of a wife who missed her husband. Agamemnon had brought Cassandra with him. I missed the fact that Agamemnon had brought her to be his concubine, so that explained Clytemnestra's open hostility to her.
Cassandra was a prophet of Apollo and sensed the death that would come to Agamemnon and herself.
This first part ended with Clytemnestra killing Cassandra and Agamemnon. Aegisthus claimed that he had a part in planning it out as well as revenge for their own family history.
Sophocles' Electra
In Electra, Electra lamented the death of her father, and her mother and Aegisthus ruling the land. Electra considered them evil and she hated them.
Orestes had been sent away and he faked his death in order for him to more safetly return home. His friend had told news of Orestes' death to Electra and she mourned him, but Orestes revealed his true form and they reunited.
Orestes agreed with Electra's sentiments and they planned to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Orestes' friend Pylades helped, and Orestes killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
Euripeds' Orestes
In an Oresteia, Orestes and Electra were going to be punished for their roles in the murders. Orestes was being haunted by the furies and he grew very sick. Pylades continued to be their ally and helped them devise a plan.
Menelaus, Helen, and Hermione arrived. Hermione was sent by Electra and Helen to gift offerings to Clytemnestra. In the meantime, Orestes tried to kill Helen but she was taken away by Apollo. When Hermione returned, Orestes took her hostage, in exchange for Menelaus pleading with the political authorities for his and Electra's mercy.
During the standoff, Apollo arrived, showing that he had Helen with him. He said that he would place Helen in the stars with Castor and Pollux (who were her brothers). He said that Orestes had only done what he had told him. He then ordered Menelaus to return to Sparta, and then told Orestes to go to Athens for a year before returning to Argos, and to marry Hermione after. Pylades and Electra were also to be married, as was originally planned.
Apollo's arrival was really random and I didn't love it because we didn't get to see how things really would have played out had he left the mortals to their tools.
Translation
Anne Carson's translation was generally pretty easy to follow. However, at times she used very colloquial language which would throw me off.
Characters
Agamemnon
Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae. His role in this play was limited. He appeared briefly when returning home, bringing Cassandra with him. He appeared to be a little bit humble, particularly in the face of the gods, which is consistent.
Before the events of this play, Agamemnon had offended Artemis, and as punishment, he had to offer up his eldest daughter Iphigenia, which shows that yielding to the gods.
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra was Agamemnon's wife, and the lover of Aegisthus. When Agamemnon returned to Argos, it felt like Clytemnestra was praising him, to the point of raising him to god status. It felt like she was goading him to overstep and offend the gods.
Clytemnestra was not happy with Cassandra. I think she thought that Cassandra was kind of dumb, because she was mumbling to herself and just not really keeping up. It makes a little sense that Clytemnestra would have hated Cassandra if Cassandra was meant to be a concubine, though Clytemnestra herself had a lover, so if anything, perhaps she was just unhappy with the possible threat of political usurpation by Cassandra. Clytemnestra soon killed Agamemnon and Cassandra, and she was happy about it.
I actually thought Clytemnestra a very interesting character. She was portrayed as evil because she was unfaithful to Agamemnon and killed him, and that I can accept as the moral message of the play.
What I thought was worthy of discussion was her thoughts on Agamemnon's killing of Iphigenia. While their children forgave Agamemnon for killing Iphigenia, seeing it as inevitable, I think Clytemnestra did not see it as such. I think that kind of relates to some of the "blasphemous" things that Clytemnestra said before, when goading Agamemnon to compare himself to gods. In my opinion, Clytemnestra had a problem with gods, and didn't really accept the fact that they had so much control over the lives of humans. In her mind, I think she believed that humans had their own free will and should have been allowed to do what they wanted. And so that was why she held Agamemnon accountable for Iphigenia's death.
Clytemnestra was actually Helen's sister. I forgot the context but at one point, Helen was blamed for her part in the war and all of the deaths involved. But Clytemnestra defended her, saying that Helen only had so much of a role in the war, and that it was the men who took it upon themselves to have a war. It was probably still popular to blame women for evil at this time, but I can't say that Clytemnestra didn't have a point.
Electra found living with Clytemnestra and Aegisthus totally insufferable. She hated that Aegisthus pranced about like he owned the place. Electra and Clytemnestra did have an argument, in which Iphigenia's death was brought up. I thought this argument was pretty interesting, as it was one of the more explicit conversations in the play (in the sense that characters were saying what they meant to the people they were having feelings about, as opposed to monologuing). But it was clear that Electra hated Clytemnestra for what she did.
Clytemnestra was later killed by Orestes, with the help of Pylades and Electra.
Cassandra
Cassandra was a prophet of Apollo. Agamemnon had brought her home with him to Argos and Clytemnestra did not like her.
In her brief part in the play, she spoke very cryptically, having received visions from Apollo and sensing the deaths that would befall her and Agamemnon.
I read up on Cassandra and learned that she was cursed with the vision, but that nobody would believe her. So I can understand how that can drive a woman near mad, especially when the visions she's seeing is about death.
Aegisthus
Aegisthus was Clytemnestra's lover. He didn't have a big part in the play. However, he apparently helped Clytemnestra in planning the murders. He had a grudge against Agamemnon because of some past family history. Agamemnon and Aegisthus' fathers (Atreus and Thyestes) were actually brothers.
I went to Wikipedia and there is actually so much messed up backstory relating to Aegisthus and Thyestes but that is not relevant to this play.
Electra
Electra was Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's daughter. She completely hated her mother for killing her father. Extremely understandable.
As Electra was portrayed positively in this play, I felt that her thoughts would have been representative of the moral good at the time. By that I mean her thoughts that Agamemnon had no choice but to sacrifice Iphigenia, who was Electra's own sister.
Electra got into an argument with Chrysothemis because Electra really wanted to kill her mother and Aegisthus, while Chrysothemis was more cautious. However, they did both agree that they cared for and missed their father.
Electra seemed extremely close with Orestes. When she learned that he died, she was extremely upset. When Orestes appeared to her, she refused to part with the urn of his ashes because she missed him so much, but Orestes revealed himself.
Electra, Orestes, and Pylades planned and executed the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. In Orestes, Electra and Orestes were shunned by society for committing matricide (though Orestes more than Electra as he had actually held the knife).
Electra didn't have a huge part in Orestes. She was originally meant to marry Pylades and everybody expected that the marriage wouldn't go through. But after Apollo came and cleared everything up, that wedding was okay to go ahead.
I thought it was a bit curious that even though Orestes was physically responsible for killing Clytemnestra, that the feeling of attraction to a father was named after Electra. I think both of their feelings towards their father and mother were intense, though slightly different. I think Clytemnestra's feelings were more personal in that she hated her mother for betraying her family like that. As for Orestes, I think his feelings were more that he just saw his mother as an evil woman who had to be vanquished.
Chrysothemis
Chrysothemis was Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's daughter. She tried to keep the peace between Clytemnestra and Electra, though she admitted that it was hard to live under Clytemnestra's roof. Electra sort of saw her as a traitor for playing nice.
But as mentioned, they did both miss their fathers. Clytemnestra had sent an offering to Agamemnon's grave. The sisters agreed that the offering was good enough, and instead, Chryosthemis brought locks of their hair to Agamemnon as an offering.
Orestes
Orestes as Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's son. He seemed a heroic character.
His friend had approached the house to inform Clytemnestra and Electra of his death, supposedly by an accident in a competition. Electra grieved deeply for Orestes. Orestes later came to Electra in disguise and saw how sad she was. He took off his disguise and the two reconciled.
Orestes, Electra, and Pylades planned the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, and Orestes and Pylades carried them out.
In the third part, Orestes was haunted by the furies, and he grew ill. He and Electra were also waiting for their death sentence. Pylades thought up of a plan to win them mercy. Orestes would kill Helen (for being an "evil woman") and then take Hermione hostage which would hopefully give them some leverage.
Orestes was unable to kill Helen as she was taken away by Apollo, but she did manage to capture Hermione. However, Apollo came in time to clear everything up so we never got to see how Menelaus truly would have reacted.
Orestes was to go away for a year. Apollo told him that he would basically be acquitted in court and then he could return and marry Hermione.
Pylades
Pylades was Orestes' friend who helped with the murders. He was originally betrothed to be married to Electra. Despite all that happened, he remained loyal.
Menelaus
Menelaus was Agamemnon's brother, and the husband of Helen. He arrived in the third play with his wife and child.
Orestes was rather upset that Menelaus did little to support him for taking revenge on behalf of his father. Menelaus actually allied with Tyndareus for political reasons, and that obviously was not a good scenario for Orestes.
Menelaus was the most powerful mortal by the end of the play, so it made sense that Orestes, Pylades, and Electra would try to threaten him into helping him. But as mentioned, we never got to see whether he would, as Apollo saved the day.
Helen
Helen showed up briefly in the third part of the play. She was hesitant to go out in public because she knew people hated her for her part in the war. However, she wanted to pay respects to Clytemnestra. So Hermione was sent to do so.
Orestes, Electra, and Pylades wanted to kill Helen and hold Hermione hostage. However, before they could kill Helen, she was taken by Apollo. Basically he said that Helen's philandering and evil days were over, and then he put her in the stars. This was really random because I'm not sure what action of Helen's prompted this. I'm not quite sure whether being put in the stars is meant to be a reward or punishment or something that's morally neutral. But perhaps Apollo just took her away as a way to stop the war.
Apollo
Apollo was a deus ex machina character, the most prime example of it.
Anyway, Apollo was only referenced in the earlier parts of the play, with Cassandra being his prophet, and then Orestes having felt his influence in pushing him to kill Clytemnestra.
Apollo showed up right at the climax and solved everything, without much reason. Well to me it seemed like not much reason but I wonder if there's a lot here that I'm missing.
Tyndareus
Tyndareus was the father of Clytemnestra (but the stepfather of Helen). He appeared in the story and he did not approve of Orestes killing his daughter. Menelaus also sided with him for political reasons.
Themes
Women
Like many old works, it felt like there was a bit of a good-bad dichotomy with women, with the good or neutral women being the passive ones and the bad women being the active ones. This is a half-baked idea so bear with me.
Using this model, the only real "evil" woman was Clytemnestra, because she took matters into her own hands instead of following the words of the gods. She blamed her husband for killing Iphigenia, instead of accepting that he had no choice according to Artemis.
And I think Clytemnestra's ideologies were probably seen as not good either. She said that it was not proper to attribute all of the Trojan War's evils to Helen because the men took up arms themselves. So funnily enough, she also defended Helen as she only had a passive role in the war compared to the men who had declared war.
Cassandra was a woman who was constantly haunted by the gods' truth and could do nothing about it. She was in fact cursed to never be believed so she couldn't ever really enact any change. I felt she was portrayed as morally neutral.
Electra, while she had very strong feelings of hatred towards Clytemnestra, did not act on them until she joined forces with Orestes, and even then, she did not exact the revenge herself.
As for Helen, I can't really say because I feel like she had a much larger character that was not covered in the scope of this play. But since she was taken from a cruel death and put in the stars, I am once again making the passive-morally neutral connection.
Family
This play was one big family massacre. Starting with the murder of Iphigenia by Agamemnon, then the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, then the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes and Electra. There's more family murders if we include more distant relatives, as Aegisthus and Agamemnon were cousins. And then also Orestes had attempted to murder Helen.
It is odd because what do you do when your family member murders another family member? I think the theme that was perpetuated here was that the good of the living relative will never outweigh the bad that they did by murdering their own kin. Agamemnon being alive did not counteract the pain of Iphigenia being dead. Clytemnestra being alive did not counteract the pain of Agamemnon being dead.
Revenge
This play was also one revenge plot after another. Iphigenia being sacrificed was retaliation because Agamemnon had offended Artemis. Whether or not that counts as revenge by Artemis can be argued.
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus exacted revenue on Agamemnon for different reasons, both relating to revenge of a family member. And then Orestes and Electra exacted revenge on them for Agamemnon.
The revenge only stopped when Apollo arrived and made everyone stop, which kind of goes on to show that revenge is a never-ending matter, right?
Gods
I was extremely interested in the role of gods. A lot of Classics mix up the stories of gods and mortals. A lot of the characters in this story were demigods of some sort too, like Helen being the daughter of Leda and Zeus.
I was interested in the idea that the gods were to be obeyed. Again, the "good" characters seemed to totally yield to the gods' wills. Electra felt that her father had no choice but to kill Iphigenia. But Clytemnestra saw this as Agamemnon's choice, and not Artemis'.
There was also the part about Apollo's prophecies. Orestes had felt comforted when he realized that Apollo had been projecting prophecies to him to tell him to kill his mother. He was comforted that he had made the right decision. So for the people at this time, I guess the confirmation from gods was a way for them to confirm that they were doing the right thing, no matter how freaky it might be.
Overall
It was an interesting play and not too tough of a read. I understand why this was a relatively popular read.
Spoilers?
Story
An Oresteia covered part of the Trojan War. I assumed that the people that this play was written for would already have had some knowledge of the Trojan War, and that was why so much was not explained (specifically the background).
From a plot perspective, I think Agamemnon and Electra were more interesting than Orestes. Actually, it might have been because Orestes had too much plot, and not as much space to explore the character sentiments.
Aeschylus' Agamemnon
Agamemnon was the first of the three plays. It began with Agamemnon's return home to Argos. His wife, Clytemnestra, was plotting his death as revenge for Agamemnon killing their daughter Iphigenia, but also because if Agamemnon was dead, she could be with her lover Aegisthus.
When Agamemnon returned, Clytemnestra sang his praises, and basically played the role of a wife who missed her husband. Agamemnon had brought Cassandra with him. I missed the fact that Agamemnon had brought her to be his concubine, so that explained Clytemnestra's open hostility to her.
Cassandra was a prophet of Apollo and sensed the death that would come to Agamemnon and herself.
This first part ended with Clytemnestra killing Cassandra and Agamemnon. Aegisthus claimed that he had a part in planning it out as well as revenge for their own family history.
Sophocles' Electra
In Electra, Electra lamented the death of her father, and her mother and Aegisthus ruling the land. Electra considered them evil and she hated them.
Orestes had been sent away and he faked his death in order for him to more safetly return home. His friend had told news of Orestes' death to Electra and she mourned him, but Orestes revealed his true form and they reunited.
Orestes agreed with Electra's sentiments and they planned to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Orestes' friend Pylades helped, and Orestes killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
Euripeds' Orestes
In an Oresteia, Orestes and Electra were going to be punished for their roles in the murders. Orestes was being haunted by the furies and he grew very sick. Pylades continued to be their ally and helped them devise a plan.
Menelaus, Helen, and Hermione arrived. Hermione was sent by Electra and Helen to gift offerings to Clytemnestra. In the meantime, Orestes tried to kill Helen but she was taken away by Apollo. When Hermione returned, Orestes took her hostage, in exchange for Menelaus pleading with the political authorities for his and Electra's mercy.
During the standoff, Apollo arrived, showing that he had Helen with him. He said that he would place Helen in the stars with Castor and Pollux (who were her brothers). He said that Orestes had only done what he had told him. He then ordered Menelaus to return to Sparta, and then told Orestes to go to Athens for a year before returning to Argos, and to marry Hermione after. Pylades and Electra were also to be married, as was originally planned.
Apollo's arrival was really random and I didn't love it because we didn't get to see how things really would have played out had he left the mortals to their tools.
Translation
Anne Carson's translation was generally pretty easy to follow. However, at times she used very colloquial language which would throw me off.
Characters
Agamemnon
Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae. His role in this play was limited. He appeared briefly when returning home, bringing Cassandra with him. He appeared to be a little bit humble, particularly in the face of the gods, which is consistent.
Before the events of this play, Agamemnon had offended Artemis, and as punishment, he had to offer up his eldest daughter Iphigenia, which shows that yielding to the gods.
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra was Agamemnon's wife, and the lover of Aegisthus. When Agamemnon returned to Argos, it felt like Clytemnestra was praising him, to the point of raising him to god status. It felt like she was goading him to overstep and offend the gods.
Clytemnestra was not happy with Cassandra. I think she thought that Cassandra was kind of dumb, because she was mumbling to herself and just not really keeping up. It makes a little sense that Clytemnestra would have hated Cassandra if Cassandra was meant to be a concubine, though Clytemnestra herself had a lover, so if anything, perhaps she was just unhappy with the possible threat of political usurpation by Cassandra. Clytemnestra soon killed Agamemnon and Cassandra, and she was happy about it.
I actually thought Clytemnestra a very interesting character. She was portrayed as evil because she was unfaithful to Agamemnon and killed him, and that I can accept as the moral message of the play.
What I thought was worthy of discussion was her thoughts on Agamemnon's killing of Iphigenia. While their children forgave Agamemnon for killing Iphigenia, seeing it as inevitable, I think Clytemnestra did not see it as such. I think that kind of relates to some of the "blasphemous" things that Clytemnestra said before, when goading Agamemnon to compare himself to gods. In my opinion, Clytemnestra had a problem with gods, and didn't really accept the fact that they had so much control over the lives of humans. In her mind, I think she believed that humans had their own free will and should have been allowed to do what they wanted. And so that was why she held Agamemnon accountable for Iphigenia's death.
Clytemnestra was actually Helen's sister. I forgot the context but at one point, Helen was blamed for her part in the war and all of the deaths involved. But Clytemnestra defended her, saying that Helen only had so much of a role in the war, and that it was the men who took it upon themselves to have a war. It was probably still popular to blame women for evil at this time, but I can't say that Clytemnestra didn't have a point.
Electra found living with Clytemnestra and Aegisthus totally insufferable. She hated that Aegisthus pranced about like he owned the place. Electra and Clytemnestra did have an argument, in which Iphigenia's death was brought up. I thought this argument was pretty interesting, as it was one of the more explicit conversations in the play (in the sense that characters were saying what they meant to the people they were having feelings about, as opposed to monologuing). But it was clear that Electra hated Clytemnestra for what she did.
Clytemnestra was later killed by Orestes, with the help of Pylades and Electra.
Cassandra
Cassandra was a prophet of Apollo. Agamemnon had brought her home with him to Argos and Clytemnestra did not like her.
In her brief part in the play, she spoke very cryptically, having received visions from Apollo and sensing the deaths that would befall her and Agamemnon.
I read up on Cassandra and learned that she was cursed with the vision, but that nobody would believe her. So I can understand how that can drive a woman near mad, especially when the visions she's seeing is about death.
Aegisthus
Aegisthus was Clytemnestra's lover. He didn't have a big part in the play. However, he apparently helped Clytemnestra in planning the murders. He had a grudge against Agamemnon because of some past family history. Agamemnon and Aegisthus' fathers (Atreus and Thyestes) were actually brothers.
I went to Wikipedia and there is actually so much messed up backstory relating to Aegisthus and Thyestes but that is not relevant to this play.
Electra
Electra was Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's daughter. She completely hated her mother for killing her father. Extremely understandable.
As Electra was portrayed positively in this play, I felt that her thoughts would have been representative of the moral good at the time. By that I mean her thoughts that Agamemnon had no choice but to sacrifice Iphigenia, who was Electra's own sister.
Electra got into an argument with Chrysothemis because Electra really wanted to kill her mother and Aegisthus, while Chrysothemis was more cautious. However, they did both agree that they cared for and missed their father.
Electra seemed extremely close with Orestes. When she learned that he died, she was extremely upset. When Orestes appeared to her, she refused to part with the urn of his ashes because she missed him so much, but Orestes revealed himself.
Electra, Orestes, and Pylades planned and executed the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. In Orestes, Electra and Orestes were shunned by society for committing matricide (though Orestes more than Electra as he had actually held the knife).
Electra didn't have a huge part in Orestes. She was originally meant to marry Pylades and everybody expected that the marriage wouldn't go through. But after Apollo came and cleared everything up, that wedding was okay to go ahead.
I thought it was a bit curious that even though Orestes was physically responsible for killing Clytemnestra, that the feeling of attraction to a father was named after Electra. I think both of their feelings towards their father and mother were intense, though slightly different. I think Clytemnestra's feelings were more personal in that she hated her mother for betraying her family like that. As for Orestes, I think his feelings were more that he just saw his mother as an evil woman who had to be vanquished.
Chrysothemis
Chrysothemis was Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's daughter. She tried to keep the peace between Clytemnestra and Electra, though she admitted that it was hard to live under Clytemnestra's roof. Electra sort of saw her as a traitor for playing nice.
But as mentioned, they did both miss their fathers. Clytemnestra had sent an offering to Agamemnon's grave. The sisters agreed that the offering was good enough, and instead, Chryosthemis brought locks of their hair to Agamemnon as an offering.
Orestes
Orestes as Agamemnon and Clytemnestra's son. He seemed a heroic character.
His friend had approached the house to inform Clytemnestra and Electra of his death, supposedly by an accident in a competition. Electra grieved deeply for Orestes. Orestes later came to Electra in disguise and saw how sad she was. He took off his disguise and the two reconciled.
Orestes, Electra, and Pylades planned the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, and Orestes and Pylades carried them out.
In the third part, Orestes was haunted by the furies, and he grew ill. He and Electra were also waiting for their death sentence. Pylades thought up of a plan to win them mercy. Orestes would kill Helen (for being an "evil woman") and then take Hermione hostage which would hopefully give them some leverage.
Orestes was unable to kill Helen as she was taken away by Apollo, but she did manage to capture Hermione. However, Apollo came in time to clear everything up so we never got to see how Menelaus truly would have reacted.
Orestes was to go away for a year. Apollo told him that he would basically be acquitted in court and then he could return and marry Hermione.
Pylades
Pylades was Orestes' friend who helped with the murders. He was originally betrothed to be married to Electra. Despite all that happened, he remained loyal.
Menelaus
Menelaus was Agamemnon's brother, and the husband of Helen. He arrived in the third play with his wife and child.
Orestes was rather upset that Menelaus did little to support him for taking revenge on behalf of his father. Menelaus actually allied with Tyndareus for political reasons, and that obviously was not a good scenario for Orestes.
Menelaus was the most powerful mortal by the end of the play, so it made sense that Orestes, Pylades, and Electra would try to threaten him into helping him. But as mentioned, we never got to see whether he would, as Apollo saved the day.
Helen
Helen showed up briefly in the third part of the play. She was hesitant to go out in public because she knew people hated her for her part in the war. However, she wanted to pay respects to Clytemnestra. So Hermione was sent to do so.
Orestes, Electra, and Pylades wanted to kill Helen and hold Hermione hostage. However, before they could kill Helen, she was taken by Apollo. Basically he said that Helen's philandering and evil days were over, and then he put her in the stars. This was really random because I'm not sure what action of Helen's prompted this. I'm not quite sure whether being put in the stars is meant to be a reward or punishment or something that's morally neutral. But perhaps Apollo just took her away as a way to stop the war.
Apollo
Apollo was a deus ex machina character, the most prime example of it.
Anyway, Apollo was only referenced in the earlier parts of the play, with Cassandra being his prophet, and then Orestes having felt his influence in pushing him to kill Clytemnestra.
Apollo showed up right at the climax and solved everything, without much reason. Well to me it seemed like not much reason but I wonder if there's a lot here that I'm missing.
Tyndareus
Tyndareus was the father of Clytemnestra (but the stepfather of Helen). He appeared in the story and he did not approve of Orestes killing his daughter. Menelaus also sided with him for political reasons.
Themes
Women
Like many old works, it felt like there was a bit of a good-bad dichotomy with women, with the good or neutral women being the passive ones and the bad women being the active ones. This is a half-baked idea so bear with me.
Using this model, the only real "evil" woman was Clytemnestra, because she took matters into her own hands instead of following the words of the gods. She blamed her husband for killing Iphigenia, instead of accepting that he had no choice according to Artemis.
And I think Clytemnestra's ideologies were probably seen as not good either. She said that it was not proper to attribute all of the Trojan War's evils to Helen because the men took up arms themselves. So funnily enough, she also defended Helen as she only had a passive role in the war compared to the men who had declared war.
Cassandra was a woman who was constantly haunted by the gods' truth and could do nothing about it. She was in fact cursed to never be believed so she couldn't ever really enact any change. I felt she was portrayed as morally neutral.
Electra, while she had very strong feelings of hatred towards Clytemnestra, did not act on them until she joined forces with Orestes, and even then, she did not exact the revenge herself.
As for Helen, I can't really say because I feel like she had a much larger character that was not covered in the scope of this play. But since she was taken from a cruel death and put in the stars, I am once again making the passive-morally neutral connection.
Family
This play was one big family massacre. Starting with the murder of Iphigenia by Agamemnon, then the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, then the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes and Electra. There's more family murders if we include more distant relatives, as Aegisthus and Agamemnon were cousins. And then also Orestes had attempted to murder Helen.
It is odd because what do you do when your family member murders another family member? I think the theme that was perpetuated here was that the good of the living relative will never outweigh the bad that they did by murdering their own kin. Agamemnon being alive did not counteract the pain of Iphigenia being dead. Clytemnestra being alive did not counteract the pain of Agamemnon being dead.
Revenge
This play was also one revenge plot after another. Iphigenia being sacrificed was retaliation because Agamemnon had offended Artemis. Whether or not that counts as revenge by Artemis can be argued.
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus exacted revenue on Agamemnon for different reasons, both relating to revenge of a family member. And then Orestes and Electra exacted revenge on them for Agamemnon.
The revenge only stopped when Apollo arrived and made everyone stop, which kind of goes on to show that revenge is a never-ending matter, right?
Gods
I was extremely interested in the role of gods. A lot of Classics mix up the stories of gods and mortals. A lot of the characters in this story were demigods of some sort too, like Helen being the daughter of Leda and Zeus.
I was interested in the idea that the gods were to be obeyed. Again, the "good" characters seemed to totally yield to the gods' wills. Electra felt that her father had no choice but to kill Iphigenia. But Clytemnestra saw this as Agamemnon's choice, and not Artemis'.
There was also the part about Apollo's prophecies. Orestes had felt comforted when he realized that Apollo had been projecting prophecies to him to tell him to kill his mother. He was comforted that he had made the right decision. So for the people at this time, I guess the confirmation from gods was a way for them to confirm that they were doing the right thing, no matter how freaky it might be.
Overall
It was an interesting play and not too tough of a read. I understand why this was a relatively popular read.