Familial Bonds Theme Analysis

In The Libation Bearers, Aeschylus makes a clear distinction between familial bonds that are wholesome and healthy, and those that have become twisted and deadly. Essentially the only example of the former is the relationship between Orestes and Electra. From the play’s first moments, the playwright takes care to emphasize how alike the two are: they visit their father Agamemnon’s burial mound at the same time, they both pray to the god Hermes, they have the same hair color/texture, and they even have matching footprints. Clearly, these two are halves of the same whole, bound together not only by their deep love for one another, but also by the trauma that their mother Clytemnestra inflicted upon them when she killed their father. The bond and allegiance that the siblings feel for their dead father is equally powerful. Both revere him and passionately wish to avenge him, displaying the importance of the connection between fathers and their children.

In contrast, the bond between the siblings and their mother has become perverted and poisonous. They blame her wholly for their father’s death, and she, meanwhile, seems to show little care or affection for them, essentially ignoring her daughter and displaying suspiciously muted signs of grief when she hears (falsely) of her son’s death. This lack of loyalty towards her family is seemingly characteristic of Clytemnestra, who killed her husband without hesitation or mercy after he came home from war, utterly violating the bonds between husband and wife. Yet as Orestes threatens her with death, Clytemnestra attempts to use the power of familial bonds in her favor, telling Orestes that there will be terrible consequences if he kills his own mother. Orestes, however, insists that her desecration of her marriage vows, and of her relationships with her children, renders him immune to such consequences (a belief that will be called into question at the end of the play).

At the same time, however, it is important to remember that Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus were both motivated by a different, competing set of familial ties when they murdered Agamemnon. Clytemnestra, for her part, killed her husband in order to avenge their daughter Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon sacrificed in order to sail to the Trojan War. Aegisthus, meanwhile, was retaliating for the wrongs that Agamemnon’s father Atreus committed against his own father, Thyestes. Small reminders of these grudges — all centered around the idea of family — remind the audience of how complex, powerful, and deadly familial bonds can become.

The end of the play, too, emphasizes the sometimes-contradictory nature of familial bonds. As the play comes to a close, Orestes has killed his mother, thus proving his allegiance to his father. Yet he now will be punished by the Furies for violating the bond between mother and son—proof of the twisted and complex loyalties that exist within the family unit. It takes an entire other play, The Eumenides, for Aeschylus to fully untangle this intricate web of allegiance.