The Play of Words: Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus’ Oresteia

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The play of words examines the dynamics of interfamilial violence in the Oresteia. It argues that the key element of the play’s discourse about violence is to be found in the inquiry for a definition of Clytemnestra’s motherhood. The failure of this research challenges the reader with some open questions: who is Clytemnestra? Where is justice if a mother dies? By reading the play’s narrative on interfamilial violence and matricide as a narrative of uncertainties in terms of the role of the mother figure, this book illustrates the complexity of the maternal role of Clytemnestra. It also breaks silence among scholars, who have generally portrayed Clytemnestra as the bad mother who kills the children’s father and as the bad wife who betrays her husband.