In Agamemnon, the title character Agamemnon in fact appears for very little of the time. For far more of the time we hear from Clytaemestra. When Agamemnon DOES appear, he seems a little cold--he dismisses the (faked) warm welcome from his wife: "Properly to praise me thus belongs by right to other lips, not yours" (916-917). On top of that, it was also revealed early in the work that he killed his own daughter to get a fair wind to Troy. In short, he is portrayed as a jerk in Agamemnon. In light of this,
1) Was Agamemnon justified to kill his own daughter in order to retrieve Helen, his brother's wife? Shouldn't Agamemnon value Iphigenia's life more than Helen's? In choosing Helen over Iphigenia, was Agamemnon adhering to a certain Greek code of conduct?
Furthermore, the sacrifice of Iphigenia was not mentioned in the Iliad. It is noted that the addition of this event in Agamemnon is vital to the work, since it is primariliy this crime of his that drives his wife to kill him, which will bring about another crime from his son. We further note that this event adds to Agamemnon's assholeness to the audience, in addition to his cold treatment of his wife as observed above. On the other hand, Agamemnon's crime justifies Clytaemnestra's murdering him. In light of this,
2) What kind of image do Agamemnon and Clytaemestra give to the audience respectively in the play? Is this a deliberate manipulation by Aeschylus to have our sympathies with one of them? Are our sympathies still with that same character after the murder? How does this prepare us for the rest of the trilogy?
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