Eumenides

"The Eumenides" was, overall, one of the most interesting and intriguing stories I have read in a literature class. Most stories are hard to grasp and don't make much sense in modern-day times. "The Euminides," however, caught my attention and never let go. It tells the story of Orestes, who killed his mother in order to avenge the death of his father. Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, kill Agamemnon--then Apollo urges Orestes to kill her as a form of revenge. Orestes feels the need to avenge his father's death, but he also feels the guilt of murdering his own flesh and blood. He choose to murder his mother because it followed reason.

The fact that Orestes was plagued by the decision between duty and guilt made his character seem to be in a very human-like predicament. his duty is to avenge Agamemnon's death. The dilemma is that his own mother is the one who murdered his father. The rational side of himself says that he must do what is right--avenge his father's death, no matter who the murderer is. The guilt that Orestes feels is natural when you put yourself in his shoes. Both perspectives have their own validity. No matter which one he chooses, he would have been punished.

In "The Eumenides," Apollo and the

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

I had never realized that a legal system similar to our own existed so long ago. Romans, however, felt that their culture was inferior to the Greek culture.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Bibliography**

. And like "The Iliad," it involves a war to determine the establishment of a people.

Another example of how trivial the gods are while choosing sides is how they changed allegiances during the Peloponnesian War. there was no good or moral reason for deciding this change. Aeneas becomes the first person narrator and tells the story of the Trojan Horse. She is the leader of Carthage and is in the process of establishing her city. They accept and are transformed into the Eumenides. Athena is one goddess who changed whose side she was on during the war. Like "The Odyssey," "The Aeneid" involves a journey. The furies are the prosecutors and Apollo is the defense. That's what lead him on him on his journey. A major change, however, is that the Trojans are heroes, not the Achaeans. I'm so used to good versus evil stories that it's hard to not want to pick a side, when two such conflicting ideas are represented.

Approximate Word count = 1744
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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