War, Sacrifice, Pride, and Glory
At the center of Iphigeneia at Aulis is the impending Trojan War—a bloody conflict in which Greece will sail on Troy to steal back Helen (the wife of Menelaos, king of Sparta), who has absconded across the sea with a handsome young Trojan prince named Paris. The war itself is one fought on the basis of pride: the Greeks see it as their moral duty to restore glory to their humiliated king Menelaos…
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Fate vs. Action
At the ideological core of Iphigeneia at Aulis is the tension between fate and action or choice. Throughout the play, king of Mycenae Agamemnon, his wife Clytemnestra, and their daughter Iphigeneia see themselves repeatedly as victims of fate, or pawns of their own destinies—and ultimately use the whims of fate and destiny as excuses for eschewing any meaningful action-taking or decision-making in the face of disaster and calamity. Though Euripides highlights several major…
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Family and Duty
Family, lineage, and inheritance are all vitally important in Iphigeneia at Aulis. The world of Greek myth is a small one in which gods and goddesses intermingle and breed with mortals, resulting in a sense of reverence for and duty to one’s heritage—heritage which, for the characters within the play, is often divine. Euripides shows, however, that while many characters respect their lineage in word and deed, few actually respect the extant bonds within…
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The Roles of Women in the World of Men
Euripides’s Iphigeneia at Aulis is set within the encampment of the Greek army at the port of Aulis. As the men await the shift in the winds that will allow their ships to sail to Troy, they establish a tent city that’s ruled and populated by men, in which women are vaguely missed but largely unwelcome. When Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, summons his daughter Iphigeneia and his wife Clytemnestra to join him there, the…
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