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Women In Agamemnon

723 Words3 Pages

Importance of women in Agamemnon
Are women marginalized, excluded and silenced in the Oresteia? They surely are, but would it be correct to state that they don’t have a very special position, which is in a sense superior to man?
The fact that women are inferior is obvious right from the beginning of the play. When the herald arrives the chorus states: “now for the truth – not a mouthful of flames and beacons.” (pg. 28). Thus completely undermining the achievements of Clytemnestra. Who built an ingenious system of signal towers to transfer messages through long distances, and was the first one to inform them about the victory achieved in Troy. Due to the fact that it was from a mouth of woman “man jeered at a credulous woman.” (pg. 32) and didn’t give any significance to her allegations.
In addition to that, when it was finally known that Clytemnestra was right she defended herself saying “I was laughed at.” (pg. 32) even though being right, but she is instantly shut down by herald who defies her, the queen: “Are such words necessary? A Queen boasting so strangely…” (pg. 33). We can see that even the queen was disrespected just because of her gender.
An interesting finding surely is that women have been judged when guilty by different standards …show more content…

19). They are considered as being unable to do anything, which can be especially seen when Clytemnestra confesses to the murder of Agamemnon: “Yes, I have killed him. So there the whole truth lies.” (pg. 70) Even though Clytemnestra publicly admits to committing the murder, she is disregarded as not being able to do something like that: “Some drug has snarled your brains” (pg. 70) or something “must have tangled your feelings into subhuman knots.” (pg. 70). Which clearly states that the Greeks believed that women were incapable of murders, intrigues or any other form of

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