This week I've been struggling through the Oresteia, I've constantly been trying to decipher the theme in this piece of literature. Is it Justice or Revenge? After much debating I've come to my own personal decision on the matter.
In my view, the Oresteia does not portray justified murder, instead it portrays the vicious endless cycle of murderous revenge. Everyone who becomes a murderer has a 'justified' reason. Aigisthos says he is justified in helping plot the death of Agamemnon, because of Atreus' (Agamemnon's father) tricking Aigisthos' father into cannibalizing his own children. Clytamnestra says she is justified for murdering Agamemnon because he sacrificially murdered their daughter Iphigineia. Orestes and Electra says that they are justified for plotting and enacting the murder of their mother in order to justify their father's death. They are are justified because they seek revenge. This is not justice.
I was watching an episode of House MD today, and their case study was a convicted criminal on death row. The criminal was convicted for murdering four people. During the show, it was revealed why the criminal killed three of those people. His first victim was his wife, he found out that she was cheating on him. His second victim was another inmate who started to attack him first. His third victim was an officer who was cruelly beating him. In all these instances, the man said he had just cause for killing the people, but clearly it was not so. He was seeking retribution and revenge for the wrong done to him. Does this make him justified? No.
After Clytamnestra's death, why did Orestes flee? Clearly, everyone in his house supported him. Yet, he became insane with guilt, he knew the Furies were after him. Surely the other greek gods would support Orestes if his crime was truly justified, surely they would shield him from the Furies wrath. That's not the case however. Also at the end of the Libation Bearers, the chorus seems to asks, "What is next? Is this the end of bloodshed, or will the murders continue?"
Anyways those are my final thoughts so far, maybe they will change as we continue to read through the Oresteia.
P.S. commented on Katelyn Ewing's post.
I think that as humans we can never really delegate justice as it should be. Are we justified to put someone in death row? The world is not as black and white as we want it to be. Sometimes we forget that these people that do "awful" things have to have some reason for it. I think Orestes does what he thinks it is right but he was too involved the situation to call the killings "justice".
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