Cassandra's importance in Oresteia

Aeschlyus’s trilogy, The Oresteia, is a tragic manifesto that painfully paints a bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos. In the first respective play of the trilogy, “Agamemnon,” the character of Cassandra plays a vital role to the play and the trilogy as a whole, in numerous distinct ways. Cassandra, as seer and prophetess, connects the present with the past, and more importantly, draws a foreshadowing veil of doom for the future. In her short yet powerful scene after meeting Clytaemnestra, the mischievous wife of Agamemnon, Cassandra gives a voice, a past, and a portrait to each of the three plays in the trilogy. Moreover, she is able to accomplish this remarkable feat in a divinely poignant manner. Cassandra possesses a woeful vulnerability as victim to both Apollo, her architect of prophecy, and Clytaemnestra, her murderer.

“Agamemnon,” the first play of The Oresteia follows the ill fate of the victorious King of Argos, Agamemnon. Upon arriving home from war, royal mistress, Cassandra, at his side, Agamemnon is brutally murdered by his own wife, Clytaemnestra and accomplice, Aegisthus. Clytaemnestra distraught and enraged over Agamemnon’s affair with Helen of Troy, coupled with his

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

The resonant word, “kinsmen,” meaning relative, appears consecutively interspersed with the ghastly images of “severed heads,” “soil streaming blood,” and “slaughterhouse of heroes” (1089-1090).

The picture becomes increasingly clearer with the second passage.

What outrage – the woman kills the man (1239-1241)

she will kill me –

Ai, the torture! She is mixing her drugs,

Adding a measure more of hate for me. Tragically, Cassandra, uninvolved, likewise meets her demise at the hands of the two butchers. As a result of her curse and her eventual murder by both God and mortal, Cassandra creates emotion and empathy into an audience that very well would not have been prevalent.

Aieeeeee! Earth – Mother –

Curse of the Earth – Apollo Apollo! (1071-1072)

Throughout the scene, Cassandra speaks through this very sense of vulnerable urgency, pressure, and horror that casts an undeniable suspense to the play and the actions that are to unfold before the audience’s eyes. The prophetess weaves her urgent lyrics in a web of succession, first giving reason to the present and the future, by way of the past. Without the vital role of Cassandra, the trilogy becomes extremely one-dimensional, dealing with each respective story separately and without continuity. The queen first offers a sinister invitation to the festivities, which falls on a silent refusal. horrid sacrifice of their own daughter for warfare victory, joins forces and bed with the malicious heart of Aegisthus.

A lion who lacks a lion’s heart,

he sprawled at home in the royal lair

and set a trap for the lord on his return.

No he cannot see

the stroke that Fury’s hiding, stealth, and murder. Aegisthus thrusts the responsibility of the actual murder upon the shoulders of Clytaemnestra, thus Cassandra names him a heartless lion for not doing the heartless deed, himself.

Approximate Word count = 1742
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.