Editing Oresteia (section)

== Themes ==
===Justice through retaliation===
Retaliation is seen in the ''Oresteia'' to cascade. In ''Agamemnon'', it is mentioned that [[Agamemnon]] had to sacrifice his innocent daughter [[Iphigenia]] to shift the wind for his voyage to Troy.<ref name="auto3">{{Cite journal|last1=Scott|first1=William|title=Wind Imagery in the Oresteia|journal=Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association|year=1966|volume=97|pages=459–471|jstor=2936026|publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press|doi=10.2307/2936026}}</ref> This caused [[Clytemnestra]] to plot revenge on [[Agamemnon]]. She found a new lover [[Aegisthus]] and when [[Agamemnon]] returned to [[Ancient Argos|Argos]] from the [[Trojan War]], Clytemnestra killed him by stabbing him in the bathtub and went on to inherit his throne.<ref name="J1960439"/> The death of Agamemnon thus sparks anger in [[Orestes]] and [[Electra]]; they plot matricide (the death of their mother Clytemnestra) in the next play, ''Libation Bearers''. Through much pressure from Electra and his cousin [[Pylades]], Orestes kills Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus.<ref name="auto3"/> Consequently, [[Orestes]] is hunted down by the Furies in the third play ''The Eumenides''. Even after he escapes, Clytemnestra's spirit comes back to rally them again so that they can kill Orestes and obtain vengeance for her.<ref name="auto3"/> However, this cycle of retaliation comes to a stop near the end of ''The Eumenides'' when [[Athena]] decides to introduce a new legal system for dealing out justice.<ref name="J1960439"/>

===Justice through the law===
Justice through the law is achieved in ''The Eumenides''. After [[Orestes]] begged [[Athena]] for deliverance from the Furies, she granted him his request in the form of a trial.<ref name=":1"/> Rather than forgiving Orestes directly, Athena put him to trial to find a just answer to the question of his innocence. This is the first example of proper litigation in the trilogy and illuminates the change from emotional retaliation to civilized decisions regarding alleged crimes.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Burke|first=Kenneth|year=1952|title=Form and Persecution in the Oresteia|journal=The Sewanee Review|volume=20|pages=377–396}}</ref> Instead of allowing the Furies to torture [[Orestes]], she decided that she would have both the Furies and Orestes plead their case before she decided on the verdict. In addition, [[Athena]] set up how the verdict would be decided. By creating this blueprint, the future of revenge-killings and the merciless hunting of the Furies would be eliminated from Greece. The trial sets the foundation for future litigation.<ref name="auto1"/> Aeschylus, through his jury trial, was able to create and maintain a social commentary about the limitations of revenge crimes and reiterate the importance of trials.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Raaflaub|first=Kurt|year=1974|title=Conceptualizing and Theorizing Peace in Ancient Greece|jstor=40651971|journal= Transactions of the American Philological Association |volume=129|issue=2|pages=225–250}}</ref> ''The Oresteia'', as a whole, stands as a representation of the evolution of justice in Ancient Greece.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Trousdell|first=Richard|year=2008|title=Tragedy and Transformation: The Oresteia of Aeschylus|journal=Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche|volume=2|pages=5–38|doi=10.1525/jung.2008.2.3.5|s2cid=170372385}}</ref>

=== Revenge ===
Revenge is a principal motivator for most characters in ''Oresteia''. The theme starts in ''Agamemnon'' with Clytemnestra, who murders her husband, Agamemnon, in order to obtain vengeance for his sacrificing of their daughter, Iphigenia. The death of Cassandra, the princess of Troy, taken captive by Agamemnon in order to fill a place as a concubine, can also be seen as an act of revenge for taking another woman as well as the life of Iphigenia.<ref>{{Cite web |title=LitCharts |url=https://www.litcharts.com/lit/agamemnon/themes/revenge |access-date=2024-02-24 |website=LitCharts |language=en}}</ref> Later on, in ''The Libation Bearers'', Orestes and Electra (siblings and remaining children of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra) succeed in killing their mother to avenge their father's death.<ref>{{Cite web |title=LitCharts |url=https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-libation-bearers/themes/revenge |access-date=2024-02-24 |website=LitCharts |language=en}}</ref> In ''The Eumenides'', the Furies—goddesses of vengeance—seek to take revenge on Orestes for the murder of his mother. It is also discovered that the god Apollo played a part in the act of vengeance toward Clytemnestra through Orestes. The cycle of revenge is seen to be broken when Orestes is not killed by the Furies, but is instead given his freedom and deemed innocent by the goddess Athena.<ref>{{Cite web |title=LitCharts |url=https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-eumenides/themes/revenge-vs-justice |access-date=2024-02-24 |website=LitCharts |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=LitCharts |url=https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-eumenides/themes/familial-bonds |access-date=2024-02-24 |website=LitCharts |language=en}}</ref>

=== Mother-right and father-right ===
To the anthropologist [[Johann Jakob Bachofen]] (''Das Mutterrecht'', 1861), the ''Oresteia'' shows Ancient Greece's transition from "hetaerism" ([[polyamory]]) to [[monogamy]]; and from "mother-right" ([[matriarchal]] lineage) to "father-right" ([[patriarchal]] lineage). According to Bachofen, religious laws changed in this period: the Apollo and Athena of ''The Eumenides'' present the patriarchal view. The Furies contrast what they call "gods of new descent" with the view that matricide is more serious than the killing of men. With Athena acquitting Orestes, and the Furies working for the new gods, ''The Eumenides'' shows the newfound dominance of father-right over mother-right.<ref name="Origin"/>

Bachofen's interpretation was influential among [[Marxists]] and [[feminists]]. Feminist [[Simone de Beauvoir]] wrote in ''[[The Second Sex]]'' (1949) that the tribunal saw Orestes as son of Agamemnon before being son of Clytemnestra.<ref name="Goldhill"/> In ''[[The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State]]'' (1884), Marxist [[Friedrich Engels]] praises Bachofen's "correct interpretation". Nonetheless, he sees it as "pure mysticism" by Bachofen to see the change in divine perspectives as the cause of the change in Greek society.<ref name="Origin">{{cite book|title=[[The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State]]|edition=4th|year=1891|chapter=Preface (4th ed.)|last=Engels|first=Friedrich|author-link=Friedrich Engels}}</ref> Instead, Engels considers economic factors—the creation of [[private property]]—and the "natural sexual behaviour" of men and women. For the feminist [[Kate Millett]], the latter factor is mistaken, and ''The Eumenides'' is important in documenting the state's arguments for repression of women.<ref name="Goldhill">{{cite book|title=Reading Greek Tragedy|last=Goldhill|first=Simon|author-link=Simon Goldhill|year=1986|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=52–54|isbn=9780521315791}}</ref>

=== Matricide and femininity ===
Electra's role in the murder of her mother has been hotly contested by scholars throughout time. Many view Electra's by-proxy killing of her mother as a representation of daughter-inflicted matricide.

Psychoanalyst [[Carl Jung]] attributes her behavior to what he coined as the "[[Electra complex]]" the jealousy of the daughter towards the mother for her sexual engagement with the father. [[Sigmund Freud]] disagreed with this claim, noting that the "[[Oedipus complex]]" cannot be applied directly to the female sex, since sons do not undergo the same [[Penis envy|penis-envy]] as daughters.<ref name=":02">Kilmartin, C. T., & Dervin, D. (1997). Inaccurate representation of the electra complex in psychology textbooks. ''Teaching of Psychology'', ''24''(4), 269–270. <nowiki>https://doi-org.turing.library.northwestern.edu/10.1207/s15328023top2404_11</nowiki></ref> Many contemporary scholars have theorized what this matricide means in the context of womanhood: Dana Tor invokes Lacan to argue that Electra's scheming represents a "ravage" between mother and daughter; Doris Bernstein sees the murder as a step on the path towards Electra's individuation; and Melanie Klein views it as emblematic of the dual power of the psyche to split of the mother into a good object and a bad one.<ref name=":12">Tor, Dana, 2022, "The '''Oresteia''' and the Act of Revenge: of Desire and Jouissance," PsyArt 27, pp. 58-73.</ref> Serena Heller recalls Ronald Britton's idea of the [[Athene-Antigone Complex]] to explain Electra's hatred of her mother deriving from an intense idolization of her father and, thus, a compulsion to exonerate herself from the restraints of feminity and the female body.<ref name=":2">Heller, Serena. "Matriarchy, Matricide and Mourning." ''British Journal of Psychotherapy'', vol. 39, no. 1, Feb. 2023, pp. 50–68. ''EBSCOhost'', <nowiki>https://doi-org.turing.library.northwestern.edu/10.1111/bjp.12790</nowiki>.</ref> Once the girl recognizes her gendered difference in the world, she must undergo re-cognition, deciding whether to mourn the maleness that she does not possess, or engage in a choice which frees them from their gendered bind. Athene, Antigone, and Electra all have a desire for "female castration" that dictates their choices in their patriarchal societies.<ref name=":3">Britton, R. (1989) The missing link: Parental sexuality in the Oedipus complex. In: Steiner, J. (ed.), The Oedipus Complex Today (Chapter 2, pp. 83–101). London: Karnac.</ref>  Amber Jacobs also claims that the matricide in the Oresteia ultimately embodies a societal repulsion towards the female gender, as Athena's motherless status allows Zeus to argue that the father is more important than the mother and absolve Orestes of his crimes.<ref name=":4">Jacobs, A. (2010) On Matricide: Myth, Psychoanalysis, and the Law of the Mother, 2007. New York: Columbia University Press</ref> Tor ultimately claims that the convergence of both Orestes' and Electra's motivations for revenge are two-fold: both a repayment for the debt of desire and a symbol of feminine [[jouissance]].<ref name=":12" /> They must repay their Freudian or Jungian debts from the guilt of want. Their jouissance in her death arises from a pre-genital dichotomy of love and hatred from the son and the daughter towards the mother.

Professor of philosophical and historical anthropology Elizabeth von Samsonow notes the intense debate over Electra's relevance in the murder of Clymenestra—[[Sophocles]], for example, viewed her as a key component of the killing while [[Aeschylus]] sees her as incidental—but refutes the tendency to shoehorn her motivations into Freud's model. She asks for scholars to reconsider Electra as undergoing vagina-envy, resulting from the woman's powerful and sexually-active position in pre-Hellenic society. By liberating Electra from the male-centric complexes and histories that restrict her motivations, study of mother-daughter relations can evolve into an "outline of a future world."<ref name=":5">Daley L. Anti-Electra: The Radical Totem of the Girl. Elizabeth von Samsonow. Translated by Anita Fricek and Stephen Zepke, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019 (ISBN 978-15179-0713-6). ''Hypatia''. 2023;38(2):e11. doi:10.1017/hyp.2022.20</ref> In another of her works, Jacobs, too, writes on the untheorized state of matricide in literature and asks for an expansion of symbolism beyond the classic Oedipean model.<ref name=":6">Jacobs, A. (2004). Towards a structural theory of matricide: psychoanalysis, the ''Oresteia'' and the maternal prohibition. ''Women: A Cultural Review'', ''15''(1), 19–34.</ref>