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Women’s Roles in Aeschylus and Euripides Due to the fact of similarities
between authors writing in the same place and time, we often make the mistake of
presuming their viewpoints are identical on the given subject. It would be a
mistake to expect Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Euripides’ Medea to express identical
views on the subject; each author had a unique way. The opinions of these two
writers on this subject are actually different. Aeschylus’ plays revolved around
ethics, and commonly he presented as objectively as possible, by asking the
audience to judge the ethical questions for themselves. Agamemnon is not really
about Agamemnon as much as is about Clytemnestra, his wife. Clytemnestra tells
us early on that she has suffered terribly in her life, and mentions the loss of
her daughter Iphigenia. Aeschylus has making us sympathize with Clytemnestra.
After Agamemnon arrives, Clytemnestra treats him almost like a god, insisting on
wrapping him in a huge royal robe as he descends from his chariot. Agamemnon
protests that this kind of welcome is unnecessary, but Clytemnestra is
insistent, and he finally gives in. Clytemnestra, however, has an another
motive; she uses the huge robe to make it difficult for him to fight against
her; as Clytemnestra later confesses, “Our never-ending, all embracing net, I
cast it/ wide for the royal haul, I coil him round and round/ in the wealth, the
robes of doom” (Norton, 559). Once trapped, she stabs him three times. Killing a
king is a very public act, and Clytemnestra makes no effort to hide what she has
done. Rather, she comes out into the public square outside the palace, bearing
the bloodstained robe, and tells the Chorus that she has killed their king, and
why. Agamemnon had sacrificed his own child. Despite the fact that Agamemnon
looked upon his deed as a public necessity, Clytemnestra saw her daughter’s
death as a private loss, and consequently could not forgive it. The point is
that Aeschylus has created a woman with whom his audience could sympathize, and
whose pain felt real to them. This was no small effort, considering the fact
that in ancient Greece women were looked same as slaves.
Euripides, in writing Medea, presents women in a much different way. There is a similarity between
Euripides’ story and Aeschylus’; both Clytemnestra and Medea is strong,
passionate woman who commit a horrendous crime. But then the similarity stops.
In Agamemnon, we understand why Agamemnon did what he did, but somehow we feel
that Clytemnestra was completely justified in planning ten years worth of
bitterness against the man who killed her child. And under her circumstances, we
completely sympathize with her desire to kill the man who separated her of the
daughter she loved. Part of the reason we have so much sympathy for Clytemnestra
is that Aeschylus presented her as a tragic character. We feel her pain, she
does not seem insane to us. In the other hand, with Euripides’ Medea is the
opposite. In the opening speech the Nurse warns us that Medea is dangerous; she
is not presented like a suffering creature as much as the wrong woman to mess
with. Later, the Nurse cautions Medea’s children to stay clear of their mother
for a while: “What did I said, my dear children? Your mother Frets her hart and
frets her anger. Run away quickly into the house, And well out of her sight.
Don’t go anywhere near, but be careful Of the wildness and bitter nature Of that
proud mind. Go now run quickly indoors.” (Norton, 644) In the very next speech
Medea curses her children, she is not a nice woman. The reason why we can
forgive Clytemnestra but not Medea is based in the innocence or guilt of their
victims.
Medea has killed her brother; she kills her husband’s new bride; and
later she kills her children. One cannot sympathize with these acts; they are
all out of proportion to Medea’s reasons for doing them; and they clearly show
Medea to be out of her mind. But what does it say about Aeschylus and Euripides’
views on the role of women? Aeschylus would seem to have a much more open view
of women, he gives Clytemnestra some credit. Moreover, he makes her sympathetic
enough that even his audience would have understood Clytemnestra’s view, and
excused her one-time intrusion into an area normally reserved for men -- seeking
vengeance. On the other hand, Euripides seems to fear women, if his
characterization of Medea is any indication. Medea is not the least human being;
she is portrayed as if she were from another planet. She is barbarian, and what
we would now call a cold-blooded killer. Euripides knows that most of the women
of his people are not like that, but he is clearly responding to what he senses
is the “other”. Because women are not exactly like men, he seems to be saying,
they could be capable of doing something like these. Unfortunately, in Athenian
society Age, there would seem to have been many people who agreed with Euripides
than with Aeschylus. Women had no legal rights; their function, aside from
motherhood, was to see that the home ran smoothly and the lives of their men
were secure and comfortable. From this point, what is truly remarkable is that
Aeschylus managed to make Clytemnestra sympathetic at all.
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