Characters

Watchman

  • Sets bonfire—signals fall of Troy
  • Soliloquy foreshadows ills of the royal household
  • Character Traits: weary

Clytemnestra

  • Protagonist
  • Queen of Argos
  • Wife of Agamemnon
  • Plots with Aegisthus and successfully kills Agamemnon
  • Character Traits: masculine in speech and action, ruthless, sorrowful (when speaking about the sacrifice of her daughter)

Herald

  • Informs Chorus that Agamemnon is safe and home-bound
  • Character Traits: elated, deeply satisfied with arrival to Argos

Agamemnon

  • King of Argos
  • Husband of Clytemnestra
  • Sacrificed daughter, Iphigenia
  • Character Traits: over-masculine, ignorant of fate

Cassandra

  • Daughter of Priam
  • Slave/mistress of Agamemnon
  • Prophetess: Prophesizes her and Agamemnon’s deaths
  • Silent Character: characteristic of Aeschylus’s style–he was “known for his ‘silent’ characters, who seemed to wait almost endlessly before thundering forth”
  • Character Traits: irrational, wild/crazy, barbaric

Aegisthus

  • Clytemnestra’s lover
  • Son of Thyestes
  • Cousin of Agamemnon
  • Plots Agamemnon’s death
  • Character Traits: vengeful, ambitious, tyrannical

Chorus

  • Citizens of Argos
  • Interpret actions of characters in play
  • Unable to foresee obvious events to come
  • Character traits: wise, purposely ignorant