Betrayal And Revenge In The Plays Medea And The Libation Bearers

In 458 B.C. Aeschylus produced his great trilogy, “The Oresteia”. The Oresteia was said to perfect the vision of warning and reward, which in other words also can be thought of as betrayal and revenge. The Oresteia originally consisted of four plays-Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Euminides and Proteus. Proteus did not survive, though the three tragedies form a unity in themselves as the only Greek trilogy we have. In this essay I will only focus on one of the three plays, called “The Libation Bearers”. The other play I will be looking at is “Medea”. Medea is the earliest tragedy of Euripides and in it we see a classic moral pattern. Aspects such as betrayal and revenge are explored in this play, such as also in The Libation Bearers, which can also be recognized in many modern plays today. It shows how strong feeling from one person to another can make you do things that are reactions of love and hate.

The first play I will look at is The Libation Bearers, and how already from the start Tantalus of Lydia betrays himself by killing his own flesh and blood. Although the actual “blood curse” first starts later (between two brothers n

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