Compare the [causes and reasons of] suffering the protagonists cause to their family and their people in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.

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World Literature assignment                                                  

Batbileg Terbishdagva        08.10.2002

Compare the [causes and reasons of] suffering the protagonists cause to their family and their people in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.

The suffering caused by the protagonists in both plays are directly connected to their actions. Oedipus Rex’ fate causes suffering to his people and his relatives, while Agamemnon causes suffering because of his father’s action. There are many other reasons that causes suffering, but every reason goes back to the main reasons, fate and father’s action.  

In both plays, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, the suffering caused by the protagonists unwillingly targets the families and the people, which eventually leads to the downfall of the protagonist. In Oedipus Rex, the protagonist unwillingly causes suffering. His father Laius, warned by an oracle that Oedipus is cursed to kill his father and marry his mother, tries to avoid the fate and leaves Oedipus on a mountain to die. Later in the play, when Oedipus is on the way to Thebes, he met and killed Laius. When he arrives at Thebes, he marries his own mother. Years later Thebes is cursed; the city is dying slowly “In countless hosts our city perisheth.” (Sophocles, pg. 7). He reluctantly causes suffering to his own people. His mother kills herself, “The illustrious Jocasta is no more.” (Sophocles, pg. 44), when she finds out the truth and his children are incestuous. Oedipus Rex causes suffering to his family and people because of his fate.  

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Unlike Oedipus, Agamemnon causes suffering because of his father’s actions.  Agamemnon causes suffering to his own family and innocent people. He sacrifices his own daughter Iphigeneia to the goddess Artemis, “the only way he {Agamemnon] can get the wind he needs is by sacrificing his own daughter” (Weissman, Alan, pg. v). He causes suffering to his own wife Clytemnestra, because he sacrificed their daughter, which also leads to his downfall. He is responsible for the death of Cassandra. The curse of the house of Atreus is responsible for the protagonist’s action.      

In Oedipus Rex, the ...

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