Agamemnon

Section 1: From the first line to Clytaemestra's: "Of all good things to wish this is my dearest choice" Summary: The play opens on Agamemnon's palace in Argos. The time is just minutes before the fall of Troy. It is night. A lonely watchman on the roof of the palace, under the starry sky, soliloquizes about his weariness. He has been enlisted by the queen to look out for a beacon of fire, a signal that …

…and the sacrifice of Iphigeneia causes the instability of Argive society, his wife's unsexing, and his own downfall. Looking ahead to the return of Orestes, it is possible to see how the avenging son, a male, will restore patriarchal order. After all, Aegisthus' virility is ridiculed by the Chorus, who recognizes cowardice in his failure to execute his plan himself. Surely, he will not bring the relief, the cure, so badly needed in grief-stricken Argos.