HONR 1101 Lecture Notes - Clytemnestra, Matricide, Oresteia
Document Summary
In the last act of the oresteia, the immortal characters (apollo, athena, and the. They are not very prominent characters in the first two acts, but they control the stage and most definitely set the pace in the last one. Each of those three immortals attempts to assert their power to achieve their version of justice in order to resolve the cyclical curse on the house of atreus. Apollo seeks to resolve the curse on the house of atreus by acting as orestes" advocate or lawyer and making his case to athena, the goddess of wisdom. In this way, he does not necessarily try to directly resolve it because he hands over the decision to. Apollo"s idea of justice is contradictory to that of the furies. Orestes was achieving justice when he killed his mother and avenged his father because it was promoted by apollo"s oracle, and that the cycle and the curse should end there.
