Themes in Agamemnon, Inferno, Don Quixote Essay Example
All writings of literature have a theme and specific symbols that are important to the work all throughout. Every writer is influenced by what is going on in the world around them when they sit down to write. In the play Agamemnon the theme is revenge, in the poem Inferno the theme is justice, and in the novel Don Quixote the theme is illusion vs. reality. In all the works there are many literary devices that add to the meaning of the literature. In the beginning, in the Ancient time period, most works were influenced by Greek mythology and had a story line that began with a well-known legend. Aeschylus did the same when he wrote the trilogy Oresteia. The first play in the trilogy is Agamemnon, which was written with a theme of revenge. The background information says justice is the theme, but I think once you take justice into your own hands it then becomes revenge. This theme of revenge goes back in history before where the play actually starts. The first act of revenge is Agamemnon, the protagonist, wanting to invade Troy because the Trojan Prince, Paris, stole Helen. Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, so that the winds would blow the fleet toward Troy. Therefore, the second act of revenge is when Clytemnestra, the antagonist, murders Agamemnon to avenge their daughter’s death. Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s cousin and Clytemnestra’s lover, helps Clytemnestra kill Agamemnon because he is seeking revenge for Agamemnon’s father killing his brothers and feeding them to his father. Agamemnon’s murder could be seen as justice for the murder of his daughter, but his death was not a sacrifice as was his daughter’s. His death is not justice but revenge. Cassandra says that Orestes will come to kill his mother, which would be an act of revenge for killing his father. In this play revenge only leads to more killings. The revenge, seen so many times in this play, was the normal system of governing in the primitive society of ancient Greece. Fortunately, Aeschylus