Compare and Contrast Klytemnestra and Antigone as Moral Agents in the Agamemnon and Antigone

Athenian Tragedy and Culture

Compare and contrast Klytemnestra and Antigone as moral agents in the Agamemnon and Antigone.

In both Sophocles’ Antigone and Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, the moral perceptions of the dominant female characters are portrayed with complex duplicities of justification for their respective actions. Clytemnestra is initially introduced as a doleful mother lamenting the sacrificial murder of her beloved daughter, Iphigenia. However, the debatable protagonist develops into a determined avenger seeking retribution by brutally slaughtering Agamemnon and his exploited captive, Cassandra. Clytemnestra’s transcendent role as a moral agent of right cause reverses its sympathetic influence as her murderous exultation begins to erode her once objective validations. In contrast, Antigone acts upon her sense of familial devotion and divine obligation in burying her brother Polyneices against King Creon’s orders. Antigone honorably champions the moral edict of duties owed to kin and to the gods; but in fulfilling this moral position, she exhibits disrespect, hubris, and insolent provocations. Clytemnestra and Antigone serve as moral “agents” who parallel each other by personifying the extremes of feminine emotions and the consequential agōns of those passions. Antigone highlights the virtues of a stubborn yet principled courage, while Clytemnestra displays an intensely defiant yet conniving valor. Both women display divergent personas in temperament, values, and actions. However, they also similarly expose ironic flaws of intention by assuming agendas to garner nobility, acknowledgment, and heroic proclamation.

In the beginning of the Agamemnon, the background of the play is unveiled through the chorus of elders’ extensive opening dialogue. The old men of Argos recount how Agamemnon has been away fighting the Trojan War for ten long years, in which he also sacrificed his maiden daughter to appease the goddess Artemis so that the Greek fleet could...