Throughout “The Oresteia: Agamemnon” there are quite a few references to children and their parents and the sacrifices through them. The first time it is mentioned is in the beginning of the Agamemnon when the hare is sacrificed. “...plunged their claws in a hare, a mother bursting with the unborn- the babies spilling quick spurts of blood…” It is interesting to see the dynamic of parents and their children dying in the beginning because the story is Clytemnestra trying to avenge her daughter through the killing of her husband. Though it is made a very clear point that this hare being sacrificed is a mother with her unborn children stilling growing inside her, if it wasn’t trying to show the point of parenting could still have been a scene about a hare being sacrificed that would have made a different emotional point when describing the death. Then there is the obvious piece in the beginning of the novel, at least in my copy where it gives a sort of breakdown of what is happening so that the point isn’t lost in trying to read between the dialogue. Of how Agamemnon had to sacrifice his and Clytemnestra’s daughter Iphigeneia, which in turns causes Clytemnestra to kill him in revenge for her daughter. As we follow into the “The Libation Bearers” we see again how family dynamics; especially in a family that has such a curse on them cause death to be brought. When the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra: Orestes kills his mother and her paramour following the word of Apollo to kill the murderers in revenge. Though the cycle is not broken, we watched as a mother killed her husband to avenge her daughter to the son then killing the mother in revenge to the final piece where although there was no other family to murder the Furies drive Orestes mad and follow him to Apollos shrine where he could have been purified but still isn’t. Each person, with a half exception to Orestes as he was following the command of Apollo, each person killed a member of their family to further a goal or revenge.
