Bring out the Dramatic Significance of Cassandra Scene in Agamemnon

                        Character of Cassandra in Agamemnon


                                      

                                    Aeschylus's main characters, though graphically drawn, show little development; they are too often exaggerated too extreme to be human. It has been said that they are vivid and magnificent but never realistic. His characters are typical in the sense that in most there is not much minute drawing of the details of the character. The characters nonetheless share the greatness of the issues which are worked out in their destiny. Cassandra, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, was loved and bribed by Apollo. But her refusal rendered useless the gift of prophecy that Apollo had bestowed on her. The play Agamemnon would have been complete without the introduction of Cassandra but the play would have lacked the dramatic intensity without her presence. Let us in the following paragraphs see and show the dramatic significance of Cassandra in Agamemnon.


                          As Agamemnon's concubine and the chief spoil of the war, Cassandra follows him on the scene, remains motionless and silent. It is only at the end of the play when Agamemnon and Clytemnestra have entered the place that she breaks into her half-crazed lament and prophecy. The variation in Cadence and emotional tension of her lines in the scene account largely for her relevance on the dramatic structure of Agamemnon. It has been argued that Aeschylus has only faintly sketched the character of Cassandra but, to quote F.L Lucas, "at least it is a sketch that our imaginations feel to roundness for more living than many a more elaborate portrait". When Cassandra stands before Agamemnon's door and foretells his and her own death, there is no need of delineation in her personality.

                             Agamemnon enters Argos in a chariot, followed by a second chariot containing his war prize, Cassandra. Cassandra becomes a slave concubine of Agamemnon. Clytemnestra receives them nicely with a warm welcome. She urges him to step down from his chariot and tread on costly purple tapestries spread over to the door of his palace. At first he refuses but in the end, he agrees. As he steps on the purple cloth, he foolishly asks Clytemnestra to treat Cassandra nicely. Clytemnestra follows him into the palace but reappears to tell Cassandra to enter also. Clytemnestra remains motionless and silent as if she knew no Greek.

                           The chorus leader addresses Cassandra nicely. She must step down from her chariot and accept slavery which is her destiny. The answer is a dramatic, horrified and horrifying cry, "Apollo my destroyer", Cassandra trembles, possessed by the prophet God. She speaks of Thyestes' banquet and sees the walls of the palace still dripping blood. She sees Agamemnon's death, and the sword in Clytemnestra's grasp, and describes her vision in lurid political flashes which the Elders not or dare not understand. She sees her own body lying death besides the king's and weeps for her own pitiful fate. She makes a supreme effort to control herself and speak clearly. In the ordinary blank verse of dialogue, she moves nearer to a simple statement, and at last, declares,
                  "I say Agamemnon shall lie dead before your eyes"

                          Cassandra is a pathetic figure. Her character arouses in us pity and sympathy. She is a sublime sufferer. Her misfortune has a peculiar pathos and her fate is more piteous than that of Agamemnon. The chorus exclaims;
                      "Brave to the last! I mourn thy doom foreseen!"

                          She foretells the death of Agamemnon and her own in a scene of heartbreaking pathos. Fluttered like a bird with terror, she yet restrains herself to utter one last prayer to vengeance, one last reflection on the fickleness of fortune and then goes into the palace to meet her death.

                          To sum up, commenting on this scene R.S Coplestone remarks, "For a moment we are left to consider this wonderful scene of madness; to reflect on its strange medley of emotions, where Ophelia's tenderness and Lear's frenzy are gathered into one...." The pathetic situation of Cassandra is too deep for tears- an innocent soul sacrificed to the hubris of Clytemnestra.


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