Examples Of Injustice In The Eumenides

In The Eumenides, Orestes’s crime of killing his mother is unfairly punished by the Athena and her men, and it reveals the injustice done to Orestes’s mother Clytaemnestra. The story starts off by Lord Apollo and the Furies arguing for the justice Clytaemnestra’s murder. Both of them have completely different view of the situation, Apollo and Orestes both argue that what the latter did was just, since Clytaemnestra killed Orestes’s father unjustly. On the other hand, the Furies wholly disagree to which they argue that Orestes should receive a punishment for killing his mother similar to what Clytaemnestra got when she killed Orestes’s father. The thing to really focus on is how Athena “fairly” resolved this matter being a god, whom people perceive the gods to be unbiased and always give justice.

Once the two opponents are done recalling their argument, she offers a solution, “And I will pick the finest men of Athens, return and decide the issue fairly, truly — bound to our oaths, our spirits bent on justice” (504-506). Now, this already is not fair because she is picking her own men from her country, how is this fair? Sure, the men can vote, but whatever the final verdict is, she will still have the final authority of making a decision, since it is her own men, she can gladly change it to be whatever she wants it to be because none of her men from her own city can go against their ruler. This is shown when the men equally voted, meaning it was a tie. Then she chimes in, “ Even if the vote is equal, Orestes wins” (756). This is clearly evident that Athena was biased all along because the votes were equal but instead of calling another person to vote, she herself automatically announces that Orestes is not