Failure to Succeed and the End to the Fight Against Patriarchy

Fail to Succeed and the End to The Fight Against Patriarchy

In Ancient Greek society,the gender roles were separate clearly.Men and women play different roles in society. Males were always strong, powerful, while females were just expected to stay at home. In The Oresteian Trilogy, the Aeschylus shapes a very different female character for Clytemnestra as a powerful man-like woman, which is not typical at her time. Clytemnestra is such a hateful villain in the play, but on the other hand, her complex character reflects the role of women in Ancient Greek society that men have higher statues than women. Her actions among this play can be described as a failure for her fight against patriarchy and the end to matriarchal in three sections: her power and ability as a man, her courage to fight against patriarchy and the failure caused by the justice of patriarchy.

Clytemnestra challenges the traditional female gender role at the beginning of Agamemnon. She is one of the most powerful female figure not only in the Oresteia, but also in all dramatic literature. At the beginning of the play, she is the queen of Argos, who rules the city by herself in the absence of her husband. It’s really unusual for a woman to have such power and authority in the art of Greek. What’s more, when she is ruling her city,she is such a unusual woman who has “man’s will” in her heart as what the watchman states(Aeschylus,41). It’s obvious that she has the same capacity ,wisdom and power as men or more and these outstanding features make the citizens in her city be afraid of her and totally be willing to obey her supervision. Besides her manly action, she speaks like a man. She can speak freely and use her art of speaking to convince her citizens of the information about Trojan War’s victory. And the chorus helps reinforce the strong character of Clytemnestra when they state,“ Madam, yours words are like a man’s, both wise and kind”(Aeschylus,55).So what Clytemnestra’s character has been shown in this character is that women in this society may have equal or more power than men, and the women can have the chance to play the leader role.

During the play, as the character of Clytemnestra become stronger, her plan to kill her husband Agamemnon for revenge is really a challenge for patriarchy and in other words, a disruption to the balance of the male-centered society. Clytemnestra seeks justice for her daughter and comes up with a well thought-out scheme. She uses a series of lies and tricks to put Agamemnon to death. After she kills her husband, she tells everything to the chorus calmly and does not hide anything. So, it is clear that Clytemnestra is just seek justice for her daughter. In her mind, she thinks she has done the right thing and Agamemnon deserves to death as she states,“Marked with his daughter’s blood, was ripe for punishment”(Aeschylus,92). However, what she does “shocks the chorus’s ears,whets their judicial wrath”(Aeschylus,92). Everyone is shocked by her action. The husband is killed by a woman, but the role that women keeps in the society expects women to obey their husbands ,so no matter is she seeking for justice, the society holds the belief that kill husband is not a right thing to do. What Clytemnestra has done is a fight against man’s statue and power, and she wants the equality between male and female. What’s more, it’s a fight against the whole patriarchy society.

However, in the end, she is killed by her son for revenge, and her son, who is trialed to be innocent by Athena and the citizens of Athens. Therefore, her fight against patriarchy calls an end. The patriarchy wins and Clytemnestra’s fight fails. There are so many factors cause the failure of Clytemnestra, but the most influential one is the “patriarchy” justice. Apollo, whose oracle guides Orestes to kill his mother, argues for Orestes on the basis of his point that woman is worth less than man. He thinks woman plays the role in a family as “a nurse who tends the growth of young seed planted by its true parent,the male” (Aeschylus,169).Besides, he takes Athena who “never nursed in the dark cradle of the womb”for example to claim his point that woman is useless but man is the centre(Aeschylus,170). Athena supports “male supremacy” too, and she thinks Clytemnestra,who kills her husband,whose death “ outweighed in grievousness by his”. so she votes for Orestes and Orestes win in the end (Aeschylus,172). It is now clearly to see, that the judge is not fair although it is fair in the patriarchal way which means that man and woman are unequal in Ancient Greek society. In that kind of society, woman doesn’t have the same right as man, and man’s statue is much higher than woman. So, they may regard Clytemnestra’s action as something that is unjust. Because of this unjust “justice” , Clytemnestra’s fight fails, and the role of women in this play returns back to the traditional female gender role,in other words,males still have more rights than females.