Surprise and Suspense in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon

Abstract

Whereas Euripides’ proclivity for manipulating audience expectations has been well-documented, with the exception of his use of silent characters, Aeschylus’ has not received the same attention. In this article, I focus on the portrayal of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Agamemnon and argue that Aeschylus uses his characters to play with tradition, to manipulate expectations, to generate suspense through deliberate ambiguity, and to orchestrate shocking revelations. I pay particular attention to how Aeschylus achieves these effects and attempt to demonstrate in Agamemnon a more sophisticated approach to character-drawing than has previously been recognized in Aeschylus.