Athenian audience Essay

A soian audience with the references made to Athenian craft and the challenges and questions he raised on any(prenominal) of the moral issues of the time and the questions that he asked in his adds were sometimes ill received such as the subroutine of women etc. Despite this, Euripides did win the tragedy prize with Hippolytus and is revered as a great playwright in present day drama.From some of the female sources that Euripides develops in his plays, one could assume that Euripides was a misogynist. However, it is wrong to swear that all of his female characters are wicked and evil Euripides has created some marvelous and interesting female characters as well as the wicked ones. possibly The Assembly Women actually had wrong motive for their revoltIn Alcestis, the surname character, the wife of Admetus (the King of Pherae) sacrifices herself for her husbands life. A most horrible act and Euripides portrays her character, as the model of what a Grecian wife should be com pletely and utterly devoted to their husband to the extent of dieing for the man that supports them. The Greek audience and modern alike will like Alcestis, as she is a sweet natured and noble char. She most certainly would have won the paddy wagon of the Greek audience. As she is such a noble character and the circular of her kindness toward her husband is so great, Euripides had to bring her back. So the doughty Heracles wends his look to Hades kingdom and brings her back.In Electra, again the title role, at the start-off of the play, comes across as a truly sorrowful boylike woman. She has rise her hair out of mourning for her murdered stupefy, Agamemnon. He was murdered by her mother, Clytemnestra, as he had to sacrifice their daughter and then brought home a concubine (Cassandra). When Agamemnon did unsex home, Clytemnestra had fallen in love with Aegis thence. Therefore, so uttermost in the play, Electra comes across as a woman precise such(prenominal) devoted to her father and hates her mother for murdering him. So far so justified. However, when she happens to accept her brother, Orestes, she convinces him to kill their mother. At this point she comes across as a very wicked conniving young lady. It seems as though she had been waiting for Orestes pass forth to make him do this. When Orestes has doubts over killing Clytemnestra, she bullies him into doing it. She knew the result she wanted to get and she got it.Clytemnestra, if you havent read or seen Aeschylus Agamemnon, comes across as a less conniving woman than her daughter. She comes across as a very powerful and domineering woman. She arrives in the play in a chariot and commands the slaves to help her down. She is very aware of her class and position and will not back down from her conclusion to murder Agamemnon and regards it as the right topic to do. In this sense we essential respect her for sticking by her stopping point and understand that Agamemnon did kill their daugh ter and come back with a concubine. In a very slight way, she is justified.Therefore, Euripides has created in Electra a very intricate character. We as the audience or readers assume that she had been planning her revenge on her mother for some time and was just waiting for Orestes return to ordain it. Before this point however, we can sympathise with her loss of a father and the pain that she must be going thorough to have the association that it was her mother who murdered him.Clytemnestra, from this play, comes across a woman who sticks by her decision and who in speech ha the capacity to justify and handle herself well. Euripides has created two complicated female characters and in his portrayal of them has shown no signs of his rumoured misogyny.Euripides creates one of the superior roles for any actress to play in Hecabe. The title role is not the aforesaid(prenominal) feet of extraordinary characterisation. However, Hecabe as a character is very interesting. The audience comes away not knowing what to think of her. She begins the play as a woman who has endured such a lot of pain as the former queen of the now sacked citadel of Troy. She has reached the limit of endurance and collapses in sorrow. She has unconnected her entire family to a war over one woman, the infamous Helen. At the end of the play, however, she literally snaps from a grief stricken widow to a raving savage. She has Polymestor blinded and enjoys the gruesome description of the event and the sounds. According to legend, Hecabe turns into a dog due to her extreme torment that results into madness. This is what Polymestor tells her at the end of the play when his blind by her decision.The character this section opened with by measure is Polyxena. She is Hecabes daughter and Euripides develops her character beautifully. Odysseus informs Hecabe that her daughter must be sacrificed to the deceased per intelligence Achilles. Without shedding a tear, Polyxena, talkativeally goes wit h Odysseus to accept her fate. As she is taken to the tomb of Peleus (Achilles father), Greek soldiers hold her and Achilles son gets ready with his sword to kill or to sacrifice her. She asks not to be held and the soldiers are taken away. She then weeping her clothes off to the wait and bravely speaks and awaits the sword to be pig out into her chest.Euripides in this play has created two memorable female characters. The brave and heroic Polyxena and the complicated Hecabe. Again, no sign of any misogyny on Euripides segment here, in fact the opposite in Polyxenas case. Creating a heroic woman is no mean feet in Ancient Greece and her character must have been received well as she is incredibly strong of character and of heart.Another great female character in Euripidean literature is Heracles wife Megara in the play Heracles. The play tells of how Hera (Queen of the gods, married to Zeus, whos father to Heracles) off Heracles mad and in his madness killed his three sons and hi s wife Megara. This then go bad him to go to the Delphic Oracle that told him to be a slave to Eurytheus thus leading to his infamous twelve labours. Anyhow, Megara, at the beginning of the play, thinks that she is a widow and is a vulnerable woman who has to be strong for her three young sons. However, Heracles actually is not dead and comes home to them in Thebes. He is then turned mad by Hera and shoots two of his sons with arrows in his madness. Megara takes the last son and locks herself in room but Heracles breaks in and shoots them both with one arrow.