Aeschylus’ motive to keep Clytemnestra in a sympathetic light is also evident through his decision to suspend knowledge of the existence of Aegisthus, Clytemnestra’s lover, until the last moments of the play. The existence of a lover immediately suggests an ulterior motive to Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon and therefore Aeschylus chooses to sway the audience to sympathise with Clytemnestra and understand her position before introducing Aegisthus. This ulterior motive for killing Agamemnon is the one that Electra fully believes. Electra views her mother in the most unsympathetic light and therefore chooses the explanation of a lover as the motive behind her father’s murder rather than the vengeance of a loved one. To admit that Clytemnestra had killed Agamemnon because of the necessity of avenging the death of a relation would be to draw a parallel between her mother and herself; an unthinkable concept.
Agamemnon reveals more of Clytemnestra’s character apart from her evident obsession with Agamemnon’s death. Clytemnestra is described many times as having the characteristics of men, “spoken like a man, my lady, loyal, full of self-command.” Clytemnestra is clearly a woman of great command and her presence inspires awe and fear in her subjects. The Watchman’s speech is very revealing of this, “it’s the old comrade, terror, at my neck. I mustn’t sleep, no.” The embodiment of the ‘terror’ the Watchman speaks of is that of Clytemnestra who would kill him if he fell asleep on the job. These characteristics would have been considered very dangerous when displayed in women. Greek women had the same rights as slaves and Creon’s view of women being “fields to be ploughed” – Antigone, was a very typical belief. Clytemnestra’s power was respected but may nevertheless have been seen by the chorus as beyond her role as a woman. The watchman also compares Clytemnestra to a man in the first description of her given to us, “That woman - she manoeuvres like a man.”
Clytemnestra’s ability to ‘manoeuvre’ is also an attribute dwelt upon. Clytemnestra obtains what she wants by devious means, relying upon herself to manoeuvre around others, “I’ll gather all I need.” Another example of her guile is her system of beacons she invents so that she may be the first to know the end of the Trojan War. She clearly delights in her own cunning and makes sure that everyone appreciates her ingenuity, “I ordained it all.” Clytemnestra’s intellect is clear throughout Agamemnon but especially clever is her idea of persuading her husband to walk upon the sacred tapestries which would incur the gods’ wrath and justify her murder. This method Clytemnestra thought of may however indicate more than her intellect. Clytemnestra’s need to incur the gods’ wrath may expose the first and last instance of self-doubt in the Agamemnon. Clytemnestra must feel deep down that, after all, she may not be fully justified to kill Agamemnon purely on his unjust sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia. This is clearly Electra’s view of her mother’s actions displayed in Electra.
Electra tells us that Clytemnestra is a cruel, pitiless, woman; a killer of her own husband who deserves to be punished for her actions. All of these assertions hold truth; she is indeed a cruel and pitiless killer, plotting for years and then finally rejoicing over Agamemnon’s death. However, Clytemnestra arouses more pity than terror in Euripides’ Electra. She displays none of the dominant qualities of Aeschylus’ queenly murderess and is even portrayed as being weak and scared of public opinion; a far cry from Clytemnestra’s defiant words of “Praise me, blame me as you choose. It’s all one,” to the men of Argos symbolised by the chorus. In Electra Clytemnestra reveals that the repercussions of the murder do emotionally affect her, “I know my tongue is sometimes bitter; that’s because I’m spoken of as a bad woman.” We are told in this way that she is often bitter, but in every instance, Clytemnestra’s speech is gentle and sets a contrast to Electra’s biting words and unforgiving attitude, “I and Orestes must kill you to avenge our father’s death; for if one revenge is just, so is the other.” In response to this, Clytemnestra expresses how she wishes she had not murdered Agamemnon, “My grand revenge! How bitterly I regret it now!” It is unlikely that Clytemnestra does in fact regret killing Agamemnon because time itself, during the absence of Agamemnon, showed that it would never heal the wound caused by the sacrifice of Iphigenia. However, what she may well regret is the dangerous hatred her children now have for her. Clytemnestra knows herself what the fruit of such hatred is and fears for her own life, “I’m terrified; not for him [Orestes] but for myself. They say he is full of anger for his father’s death.” The main similarity in the portrayals of Clytemnestra in Electra and Agamemnon is her intellect and deviousness. Her position is vastly different in the aftermath of the murder than it was in the build-up. Preceding the murder, she was in a position of power; it was she who decided who lived and who died and therefore she could afford to speak in any manner she liked. Now, Clytemnestra, who never had a good public reputation, is dangerously disliked and her life is in danger. Power even over her own life has slipped from her grasp scaring Clytemnestra beyond measure as control was always something she had clung to. Her character therefore changes to suit her circumstances and she adopts a more grovelling tone, knowing that her only chance of survival is to use the power of a blood tie to dissuade her children from revenge.
Whether the maternal feelings Clytemnestra displays in Electra are true or a devised method of survival is therefore open to debate. Clytemnestra’s intense reaction to Iphigenia’s death suggests that the attachment to her children was real and the affectionate addressing of Electra as ‘my child’ likely to be honest. Clytemnestra's response to the news of Orestes' death is also unsettling. She prays that Orestes might never return to disrupt her life, but her reaction to his death is not one of unqualified delight. Her expression of maternal feelings, however brief, points a level of human decency and undermines Electra's villainous depiction of her. However, Clytemnestra’s actions may be said to speak louder than her words. She marries Electra to a peasant far below her position as princess and banishes her to live with him in his hut. Clytemnestra also does not call for Orestes to come back to the palace. Both of these were done as an attempt to safe-guard her position as Queen; a purely selfish motive leaving no room for maternal feelings and recalling the harsher depiction of her character in Agamemnon. We can also expose some outright lies Clytemnestra tried to make Electra believe when structuring her defence. She tells Electra that it was Cassandra who finally pushed her to kill Agamemnon when we know that she had been planning his death all along. Knowing that she lied about this, can we take her subtle suggestions of maternal love to be genuine or another scheme, typical of her character in Agamemnon.
In both plays we only see her through the eyes of others, she isn’t actually strongly characterised. Her psychological reasons for the murder are the point and not her emotional state. Considering this, both Agamemnon and Electra reach similar conclusions concerning Clytemnestra’s situation. She has ample grounds for hating her husband but no-one holds her justified in killing him in either play, “your words are just; yet in your ‘justice’ there remains something repellent.” Electra disposes of her mother’s defence in detail and leaves the audience feeling that Clytemnestra’s murder of her husband really was not warranted. How different the plays are in their depiction of her character depend on how the reader chooses to interpret Clytemnestra’s maternal professions; either genuine and loving or devious and selfish.