Refracted Truth and Multivalent Meaning in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon

As the characters of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon grapple with the violence drowning the house of Atreus, the audience and reader encounter a tangle of contradictory interpretations. The playwright supplies no map for navigating these tortured paths. By examining each character’s response to critical elements of the plot, this essay demonstrates how Aeschylus confronts his audience with mortal characters whose discordant perspectives generate an uncomfortable uncertainty contrasting with the trilogy’s movement toward divine resolution that culminates in Eumenides.