Assignment:
How does The Oresteia address the humanistic issues of freedom and constraint? In other words, how do the central characters in the plays exhibit free will in the face of the ancestral curse on the House of Atreus? "Constraint" is fate or the will of the gods who can see into the future."Freedom" can be defined as acceptance of responsibility for one's own actions.
There are two ways to approach this assignment. You can either take a single character (Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Cassandra, or Orestes) or a single play (The Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, or the Eumenides) and write an analysis of how the forces of fate and freedom interact with that character or play.
You may do some research if you choose. If you use the words or ideas of someone other than yourself, you must cite your sources.
The paper will be:
1. Two typed pages, double spaced (12 pt., standard margins)
2. You must write you paper in a Word format
3. Please remember you are writing an essay, not a book report. There is no need to re-tell the story as I am familiar with this work.
Name of the book: The Oresteia / Aeschylus ; translated [from the Greek] by Robert Fagles