western literature: western literature week12

	The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytaemnestra, the murder of Clytaemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, and end of the curse on the House of Atreus. This trilogy also shows how the Greek gods interacted with the characters and influenced their decisions pertaining to events and disputes.The only extant example of an ancient Greek theater trilogy, the Oresteia won first prize at the Dionysia festival in 458 BC. Many consider the Oresteia to be Aeschylus' finest work. The principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice, as well as the transition from personal vendetta to organized litigation.
	In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra and the father of Iphigenia, Electra or Laodike, Orestes and Chrysothemis. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area. When Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was taken to Troy by Paris, Agamemnon commanded the united Greek armed forces in the ensuing Trojan War. Upon Agamemnon's return from Troy, he was murdered by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife, Clytemnestra. In old versions of the story, the scene of the murder, when it is specified, is usually the house of Aegisthus, who has not taken up residence in Agamemnon's palace, and it involves an ambush and the deaths of Agamemnon's followers as well. In some later versions Clytemnestra herself does the killing, or they act together as accomplices, killing Agamemnon in his own home.
In Neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Carl Gustav Jung, is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. In the course of her psychosexual development, the complex is the girl's phallic stage; formation of a discrete sexual identity, a boy's analogous experience is the Oedipus complex. The Electra complex occurs in the third—phallic stage (ages 3–6)—of five psychosexual development stages: (i) the Oral, (ii) the Anal, (iii) the Phallic, (iv) the Latent, and (v) the Genital—in which the source libido pleasure is in a different erogenous zone of the infant’s body. In classical psychoanalytic theory, the child's identification with the same-sex parent is the successful resolution of the Electra complex and of the Oedipus complex; his and her key psychological experience to developing a mature sexual role and identity. Sigmund Freud instead proposed that girls and boys resolved their complexes differently—she via penis envy, he via castration anxiety; and that unsuccessful resolutions might lead to neurosis and homosexuality. Hence, women and men who are fixated in the Electra and Oedipal stages of their psychosexual development might be considered "father-fixated" and "mother-fixated" as revealed when the mate (sexual partner) resembles the father or the mother.	In psychoanalysis, the Oedipus complex (or, less commonly, Oedipal complex) is a child's desire, that the mind keeps in the unconscious via dynamic repression, to have sexual relations with the parent of the opposite sex (i.e. males attracted to their mothers, and females attracted to their fathers). The Oedipus complex occurs in the third—phallic stage (ages 3–6)—of the five psychosexual development stages: (i) the oral, (ii) the anal, (iii) the phallic, (iv) the latent, and (v) the genital—in which the source of libidinal pleasure is in a different erogenous zone of the infant's body. The Oedipal complex originally refers to the sexual desire of a son for his mother and does not have to be reciprocated. Sigmund Freud, who coined the term "Oedipus complex", believed that the Oedipus complex is a desire for the parent in both males and females; he deprecated the term "Electra complex", which was introduced by Carl Gustav Jung in regard to the Oedipus complex manifested in young girls. Freud further proposed that boys and girls experience the complex differently: boys in a form of castration anxiety, girls in a form of penis envy; and that unsuccessful resolution of the complex might lead to neurosis, pedophilia, and homosexuality. A child's identification with the same-sex parent is the successful resolution of the complex.
	Aeschylus was an ancient Greek tragedian. He is often described as the father of tragedy. Critics' and scholars' knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays.According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in theater allowing conflict among them; characters previously had interacted only with the chorus. Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived, and there is a longstanding debate regarding his authorship of one of these plays, Prometheus Bound, which some believe his son Euphorion actually wrote. Fragments of some other plays have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us surprising insights into his work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy; his Oresteia is the only ancient example of the form to have survived. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is the only surviving classical Greek tragedy concerned with contemporary events,and a useful source of information about its period. The significance of war in Ancient Greek culture was so great that Aeschylus' epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright. Despite this, Aeschylus' work – particularly the Oresteia – is acclaimed by today's literary academics.