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Here are the notes from Friday:
1. Ejournal assignment: Answer someone else's question about the Orestia.
2. Epiphany (or "lightbulb moment"): sudden manifestation of power, energy or insight from another dimension
3. Armageddon: battle field in book of Revelation (light triumphing over darkness)
4. Orestia is about the coming of light to a dark world
5. Electra complex: the opposite of the Oedipus complex--girl loves her father in a sexual way
6. Orestes: is a model hero (no little about his childhood, returns when he is old to avenge wrongs, etc)
7. Orestia concerns a cycle of vengeance (one death leads to another...)
8. Today we have psychologized things that the Greeks personified (ie. the Furies are the "guilt thoughts" of today)
9. Therapist= the rapist
10. When discussing her relationship with Agamemnon, Clytemnestra uses related metaphors: net, yoke, chain, etc...signifying oppression
11. On pg. 140 there is a reference to grapes ("trampling down the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored)
12. Story of Cassandra: Apollo wanted her, but Cassandra would only go with him if he granted her one wish. She wished to be able to see the future. Apollo granted this wish, but soon after Cassandra left him and didn't fulfill her part of the deal. As punishment, Apollo made it so that although she could see the future, no one would ever believe her.
13. Our modern word for "car" comes from the word "chariot"
MY QUESTION CONCERNING THE ORESTIA: Does Orestes know about the sacrifice of Iphigenia? Was he too isolated as a child to hear about it? If he does know, why does he not understand Clytemnestra's motives? Is it merely because of the patriarchal society (son must protect father)? Or is it because in his anger he refuses to see the ultimate cause of this violence? Or does he have hidden resentment towards his mother and he would have used any reason to kill her? Also, who would have the audience sympathized with during the time it was written? It seems that today we would feel the pain of Cytemnestra, who lost her daughter. But what would the Greeks think?
There's a lot of questions in my "question" about the Orestia, but the idea of revenge in literature always fascinates me: do the characters simply not see the just act that started it all? or do they just refuse to? It seems as if no one cares that Iphigenia was murdered, but only that Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon. Is this a crime of ignorance or passion?
Until later...
Anonymous
November 2 2005, 01:31:44 UTC 6 years ago
Response to your question
Hey Emily, I love your notes! Thanks for posting such great descriptions of the class. And on to answering your question..The murder of Iphigenia is neither a crime of ignorance nor a crime of passion but a crime of culture. We see an equality in gender when it comes to human life threatened with death. Yes, today we would feel the pain of Iphigenia's murder. When the situation of the desert island and who gets to eat the coconuts comes into question, culturaly, we give the coconuts to the young and somewhat more coconuts to women than to men leaving the rest to starve. Theoreticaly, some men would need to be kept around if only for their sperm.
The Greeks had a very different sense of moral equality. Women were not moraly equal to men and on the desert island they would receive fewer coconuts than the men, if any. This view existed on account of two things: the patriarchal society perpetuating itself and Grecian views on sexuality. Homosexuality was somewhat common and accepted culturaly. Men did not need to seek sexual gratification from women and thus sex as a neccesity becomes sex as a choice. Reproduction was also viewed without the requirement of women. The Eumenides, p261 line 665, Says Apollo...
"Here is the truth, I tell you - see how right I am.
The woman you call the mother of the child
is not the parent, just a nurse to the seed,
the new-sown seed that grows and swells inside her.
The man is the source of life - the one who mounts.
She, like a stranger for a stranger, keeps
the shoot alive unless god hurts the roots.
I give you proof that all i say is true.
The father can father forth without a mother.
Here she stands, our living witness. Look - "
(Points to Athena)
Athena, born from her fathers forhead, required no mother. As reflected in Athenas birth story, the cultural role of woman with regards to sex and moral equality was one not of neccesity. I think Orestes cannot see the death of Iphigenia and this is partly what the play is about. I can imagine a Greek audience coming away from this play and clearly seeing the devision between patriarchal domination and the moral rights of women. I suspect this play is intended to provoke people about these two combative views. When culture and concience come in conflict, some element of change will always occur. The audience, sympathizing with both, is forced to challenge itself and its views. This play is a work of radical protest!
Great question!
~Mick