Using Aristotle's Ethical and Political Works to Understand the Characters and Plot of Aeschylus' Agamemnon (original) (raw)

“The gods . . . so ordained that fate should stand against fate to check any person’s excess” (1025-1027): Applying Aristotle’s Ethical and Political Theory to the Characters in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. New York, New York: Global Scholarly Publications, 2011.

Paideia: Educating for Wisdom in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy A Reading of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon through the Categories of Aristotle This play is set in Athens at the time when Agamemnon and the Greeks are returning home from ten years of war. When the war first began, the goddess Artemis demanded that Agamemnon kill his oldest daughter, Iphigenia, before she would allow the winds to blow and the Greeks could get to Troy. Clytemnestra, Queen of Athens, has vowed revenge. First she allows Agamemnon’s rival for the throne, to live with her. Now she is plotting to kill him, taking vengeance for the death of their daughter. Toward the end of Aeschylus’ play, the Chorus reflects on the actions of the characters, both rulers and ruled, and articulates in poetic language Aristotle’s doctrine of the Golden Mean, “Fate stands against Fate,/ to check any man’s excesses.” This book argues that throughout the play the members of the Chorus consistently exercise practical wisdom as Aristotle describes it in his Nicomachean Ethics. In the choices they make and the actions they take in relation to both citizens and rulers alike, they give good advice and exhibit the character-traits and choices necessary for Greece to pick up the pieces after the war and return to the democratic way of shared leadership the Greeks prided themselves on having. Their wisdom is exhibited partially by what they do and partially through a contrast with the choices and reasoning of the other characters. The other characters claim to know the will of Zeus, God of Justice. The members of the Chorus begin the play admitting they do not know how to call upon Zeus and what justice demands they should do. Their recognition of their ignorance and their desire to understand the meaning of the events around them gives them the ability to examine themselves and others. They recognize the corruption of judgment in others: the Herald, who blindly worships his King, Agamemnon, who thinks he is more powerful and wise than he is, Clytemnestra, who uses flawed arguments to defend the murder of her husband, and Aegisthus, whose takeover is clearly drive by his own ambition rather than the well-being of the Athenians. The Chorus members exhibit rational temperance, rational courage, rational anger, liberality, the capacity to forgive and move forward, rational judgment about their proper place as advisors to Agamemnon, they refuse to overreact and take revenge when they are wronged, they are high-minded and serious people, concerned deeply with the proper ordering of their society, they accept the position as subjects of unjust rulers in order to preserve order during the takeover of Athens by Aegisthus, praying for the return of Agamemnon, when Agamemnon is killed they vow to overthrow the unjust order, through resistance and the return of Orestes, the rightful heir to the thrown, they do not act impulsively but, even in the critical moments, they make sure they have the facts before acting, they avoid pride and are not motivated by money, power, or social status, and toward the end of the play, they are willing to admit that Cassandra, a Trojan, a woman, a slave, and Agamemnon’s concubine, possesses divine wisdom is has achieved a level of dignity and nobility rare among any human being, including Greeks. The play is trying to teach audiences how to live an excellent human life by proving models of the best life and all the ways we can “miss the mark,” leading to destruction.