5. Every number that has been examined
| # | What it is |
|---|
| 7 | Plays of Aeschylus that survive — asked in all four papers |
| 80–90 | Plays he wrote |
| 2nd | The actor he introduced (Father of Tragedy) |
| 525–456 BC | Aeschylus: born Eleusis, died Gela (Sicily), aged 69 |
| 458 BC | The Oresteia performed |
| 490 / 480 / 479 | Marathon / Salamis / Plataea |
| 1905–1980 | Sartre: born and died in Paris |
| 1934 | His year in Berlin |
| 1938 / 1940 / 1943 | Nausea (novel) / Bariona (1st play, in a prison camp) / Being and Nothingness AND The Flies |
| June 1943 | Premiere, Théâtre de la Cité, occupied Paris |
| 3 | Blows Clytemnestra strikes in the bath |
| 10 | Jurors Athena chooses (the first homicide court) |
| 1 year | The Watchman's vigil |
| 1 | Speeches Pylades makes in the whole play |
| 15 | Years since Agamemnon's murder, in The Flies |
| 3 → 18 | Orestes exiled at 3; 15 years later he is 18 when he kills |
| 3 months | How long Agamemnon would have lived anyway, says Zeus (apoplexy, in a slave-girl's arms) |
| 3 settings | The Eumenides: Delphi, Athens, the Areopagus — so no unity of place |
6. Her six traps, and how to beat each one
Trap 1 — The deleted answer
She removes the correct option and keys
“none”.
“Who was Agamemnon's concubine? Helen / Athena / Electra / none” — Cassandra isn't there.
If you know the answer and cannot find it, choose “none”, never the least-wrong name.
Trap 2 — “All of the following are TRUE/FALSE except”
Two or three per paper. The false statement is nearly always either
a degree of kinship (“Aegisthus is Electra's uncle”) or
a modern term on the ancient play (“the main theme in The Oresteia is absurdism”).
Absurdism, existentialism, atheism, prose and freedom can NEVER be Oresteia answers. Watch the format flip: “all FALSE except” wants the one TRUE statement.
Trap 3 — The god swap
Right job, wrong god. Apollo→Zeus, Athena→Apollo, Apollo→Athena for Cassandra's priesthood.
Check the job, not the name.
Trap 4 — The play swap
A true fact about the wrong play.
“In The Flies, Electra pours her libations at the statue” — she brings
kitchen refuse.
Sartre always DEMOTES: libation→garbage, princess→laundress, father of gods→god of flies.
Trap 5 — The deleted qualifier
“Athena honours men in all things, including marriage” — the real line is
“in all things BUT marriage”. Same with “Sartre is the founder of existentialism” (of
FRENCH existentialism).
One missing word makes a true sentence false.
Trap 6 — The half-true option
One true word plus one false.
“Postmodern and allegorical” for the Oresteia — allegorical yes, postmodern no.
Both halves must be right.
Two freebies she always includes. One or two options are openly absurd — Darth Vader, Medea, Oedipus, “the battle of Marathon was between the Greeks and the Trojans”. Cross them out immediately; every item is really a 3-way or 2-way choice.
7. Her printed answer keys that are WRONG (14 found across the four papers — she reuses questions, so she reuses these)
| Question | She printed | The truth |
|---|
| How many complete plays by Aeschylus survived? (Paper C) | Five | Seven — keyed correctly in the other three papers |
| Verdict of Orestes' trial? (Paper C) | Guilty | Not guilty — a guilty verdict makes the trilogy impossible |
| Symbolic meaning of the flies? (Paper C) | Freedom | Guilt and punishment |
| Who represents existentialist freedom? (Paper C) | Clytemnestra | Orestes |
| Act marking the resolution of The Eumenides? (Paper C) | Athena declares a sanctuary | The Furies are transformed |
| “The Lioness” refers to… (Paper C) | Athena | Clytemnestra (Athena is not in Agamemnon) |
| The addressee of Cassandra's prophecy? (Paper C) | Iphigenia | The Chorus (Iphigenia is dead) |
| “Her land” refers to… (Paper C) | Delphi | Sparta — Helen's kingdom |
| How are Clytemnestra & Aegisthus killed? (Paper C) | Strangled by Electra | Stabbed by Orestes |
| Aegisthus and political corruption? (Paper C) | Religious piety | A corrupt ruler — he believes none of it |
| Who embodies reason in The Flies? (Paper A) | Athena | Orestes (Athena is not in The Flies) |
| Athena's stance on men? (Paper A) | Honours men in all things including marriage | …in all things but marriage |
| What does Orestes fear most? (Paper A) | The wrath of Athena | The consequences of his actions |
| Overarching theme of Agamemnon? (Paper D) | The importance of family | The dangers of pride & arrogance (hubris) |
What to do in the exam. Answer what the course material says, not what you suspect her key says — you cannot see the key, and most of these look like a mis-shifted row in the answer grid rather than a belief she holds. But recognise these fourteen stems: if one appears and your answer feels obviously right while an option looks oddly tempting, you have met a known bad key.
Lecture 1 — Introduction & the Comparison Table HOT
Aeschylus 525–456 BC • born
Eleusis (Eleusinian Mysteries) • noble family • fought Marathon/Salamis/Plataea • epitaph names him a
soldier, not a playwright • died
Gela, Sicily, aged 69,
a vulture dropped a turtle on his head •
Father of Tragedy: introduced the SECOND actor • wrote ~80–90,
7 survive • the Oresteia (458 BC) is
the only complete Greek trilogy to survive •
feminist touches.
Sartre 1905–1980, Paris • Berlin 1934 (existentialism + nihilism) • POW, then Resistance •
Les Temps Modernes • Marxist • Simone de Beauvoir •
declined the Nobel • Nausea 1938, Bariona 1940,
Being and Nothingness + The Flies both 1943 • father of
FRENCH existentialism • atheist.
Backstory: Paris takes Helen → violates
Xenia → Trojan War → Artemis stops the winds → Iphigenia sacrificed.
THE COMPARISON TABLE (marked “extremely important” in the handout) — every row is gods vs man:
paganism/existentialism • belief in many gods/belief in man • dictatorship/democracy • will of gods/will of man • gods responsible/man responsible • apolitical/political • predetermination/logic.
Guessing? Pick the option where the Flies column says “man”.
Lectures 2–3 — The Curse & Agamemnon begins HOT
The curse: Tantalus (serves Pelops to the gods; punished with eternal hunger and thirst) → Pelops restored → Atreus & Thyestes: Thyestes seduces Atreus' wife, is driven out, returns for forgiveness, and Atreus murders his children, cooks them and serves them to him — violating the law of Artemis, goddess of babies. Thyestes curses the line. Aegisthus is the only surviving son.
The play opens: the Watchman, one whole year awake on the roof, sees the beacon. “That woman — she manoeuvres like a man.” The Chorus of old men of Argos recalls Iphigenia — we never see the sacrifice, only their memory of it, which makes it worse. Agamemnon's impossible choice: sail and murder his daughter, or refuse and dishonour Zeus. He chose ambition; he is both victim and perpetrator. “Pan or Zeus” — confusion over which god to please.
Why the Oresteia is hard: translated from Greek, written in verse, many major characters, you must draw a family tree.
Lecture 4 — Agamemnon completed HOT
Herald confirms Troy's fall and reveals Menelaus lost in a storm. Agamemnon arrives with Cassandra.
The carpet: purple/red cloth was laid for gods only. He knows it: “Give me the tributes of a man and not a god, a little earth to walk on.” She flatters him onto it — hubris, and he walks into his own death.
Cassandra's curse: Apollo loved her, gave her prophecy; she refused to bear his child; he left the gift and removed the belief. She foresees everything and can prevent nothing. Key lines: “she is the snare” • “the knife waits for me” • “there will come another… born to kill his mother” • Acheron.
The murder: net/robe, bath, three blows. “My heart is steel.” She claims possession by “our savage ancient spirit of revenge”.
Aegisthus boasts of “a love feast of his children's flesh” — and the Chorus calls him a coward: “why did the woman have to bring him down?”
Lecture 5 — The Libation Bearers HOT
Orestes returns secretly with Pylades, sent by Apollo's oracle. Chorus = slave women of the palace.
The lock of hair on the tomb — a synecdoche of Orestes; family resemblance proves kinship.
The snake dream: Clytemnestra bore a snake that bit her breast. The snake is the breastfed son drawing blood from the source of his nourishment. She sends libations to placate the dead — and so feeds her own murderer. Orestes: “No empty dream. The vision of a man.”
Deception: he claims to bring news of his own death. Cilissa the nurse alters the message so Aegisthus comes without his bodyguard.
The hesitation: “What will I do, Pylades? — I dread to kill my mother!” Pylades' only speech in the play recalls him to Apollo. He kills her over Aegisthus' body: lex talionis, “you killed and it was outrage — suffer outrage now.”
The paradox: he obeyed Apollo (Olympian, patriarchal) and the Furies (chthonic, matriarchal) hunt him for it.
Lecture 6 — The Eumenides HOT
Three settings — Delphi, Athens, the Areopagus — so unity of time but NOT place (the other two plays keep both).
Delphi: the Pythia opens; Apollo has drugged the Furies asleep; Clytemnestra's ghost wakes them.
Athens: Athena founds the first homicide court with ten citizen jurors. “Two sides are here, and only half is heard.”
Apollo's argument: “the mother… is not the parent, just a nurse to the seed — the man is the source of life.” His living witness is Athena, born motherless from Zeus' skull. (This mirrors Athenian law: women had no citizen rights.)
The Furies' reply: “the blood of the man she killed was not her own” — they punish blood-kin murder only, which is why they never pursued Clytemnestra.
The verdict: jury tied; Athena breaks it. “The lots are equal. The man goes free.” “I honour the male, in all things but marriage.”
The end: offered honour, not defeat, the Furies become the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones — not banished but civilised. Revenge ends; reconciliation begins.
Lecture 7 — The Flies, Act One HOT
Disguises: Orestes =
Philebus of Corinth; Zeus =
Demetrios of Athens. The
Tutor replaces Pylades.
Argos: statue of
“Zeus, god of flies and death”, blood-smeared • windowless houses, doors shut • everyone in black • flies everywhere •
fifteen years since the murder.
The flies = remorse and guilt. They are the Furies.
Orestes at the start: “free as air… gloriously aloof” — the
empty freedom, “freedom from”. He belongs nowhere, has no memories, no city. He does
not come to avenge his father.
Second comparison table (from this lecture): paganism/existentialism • many gods/man • dictatorship/democracy • will of gods/will of man • gods responsible/man responsible • apolitical/political • predetermination/logic.
Sartre's method in one word: DEMOTION. Zeus: father of gods → god of flies. Pylades: voice of Apollo → a chatty sceptic. Clytemnestra: tragic queen → painted whore. Libation of wine and honey → a bin of kitchen refuse. Electra: mourning princess → washer of royal underwear. State the demotion and you can answer any comparison item.
Lecture 8 — Electra, the Ceremony, the White Dress HOT
Electra: the least of the servants; washes the king's and queen's under-linen; proof = her chapped, rough hands; endures her mother's nightly kiss — “like a piece of raw meat on my forehead”. She welcomes strangers because only what is foreign is dear. She unknowingly urges her own brother to kill.
Orestes is 18 (exiled at 3 + 15 years). Cover story: on his way to Sparta to enlist.
Clytemnestra: does NOT regret killing Agamemnon — she sang and danced, and still thrills at the memory. She regrets only the lost son. Warns Electra of the inexpiable crime (one that cannot be repented) and of her likeness to herself — a prophecy fulfilled exactly.
Dead Men's Day: a cavern above the town, blocked with a great black stone by the High Priest; the soldiers roll it away; the dead spend one night with their families, then return for a whole year. Invented by Aegistheus to rule by fear. Children taught to be terrified: “that's how one grows up into a decent, god-fearing man.”
The white dress = REBELLION (not innocence). She dances: “the Dead do nothing”, the sky does not fall, and the crowd begins to split. Zeus rescues Aegistheus by stretching out his right arm — “Poseidon, carabou, carabou, roola” — and the stone crashes down.
Lecture 9 — The Flies completed HOT
Recognition fails: she would rather he had stayed Philebus.
“I have no use for noble souls; what I need is an accomplice.” His happy childhood
disqualifies him.
His conversion: he is
too light, a ghost; he must take “a burden… a load of guilt so heavy as to drag me down” to
belong. He wants his place among men, not happiness.
Aegistheus alone: fifteen years
playing a part, “the black of my robes has seeped through to my soul”; he has
no remorse and envies Clytemnestra hers; he has come to
believe his own invented fable.
Zeus' two confessions: (1)
“The first crime was mine; I committed it when I made man mortal” — Agamemnon would have died of apoplexy in three months anyway. (2)
“Once freedom lights its beacon in a man's heart, the gods are powerless against him.” The secret shared by gods and kings:
men are free, and must not know it.
Zeus' rule about crimes — this explains the whole plot. A crime the doer DISOWNS feeds the gods (Aegistheus, safe for fifteen years). A crime the doer OWNS destroys them (Orestes, a plague-spot). By that same rule, Electra's final denial — “you murdered your own mother” — is exactly what delivers her to the Furies.
The murders: Aegistheus
refuses to defend himself and asks to die. Orestes:
“Justice is a matter between men, and I need no God to teach me it.” Clytemnestra dies offstage,
cursing them. Electra's hatred dies with the corpse; Orestes: “It is not night; a new day is dawning. We are free.”
Act Three: Apollo's temple. The Furies =
goddesses of remorse;
only Electra sees them. She takes on Clytemnestra's dead eyes, disowns the plot, and finally repents:
“I will be your creature and your slave… I repent, Zeus.” Orestes:
“Neither slave nor master. I am my freedom.” He refuses the throne, calls it
his coronation day, takes the city's guilt — “your faithful flies have left you, and come to me” — tells the parable of the
flute-player who led the rats out of Scyros, and walks into the light with the Furies shrieking after him.
Lecture 10 (FINAL) — The Study Guide: the eight comparison tables HOTTEST BLOCK IN THE COURSE
| Aspect | The Oresteia | The Flies |
|---|
| Author / date | Aeschylus, 458 BC | Sartre, 1943 (WWII) |
| Religion | Polytheism / pagan | Atheism |
| Philosophy | Fatalism, predestination | Existentialism |
| Free will | None; humans doomed | Complete; humans responsible |
| The gods | Real, active, controlling; flawed and jealous; elite in rank, human in thinking | False, oppressive, comical; a human invention |
| Human agency | An illusion | The only reality |
| Orestes' motive | Revenge / obeying Apollo | Freeing the people |
| Orestes' guilt | Guilty but acquitted | Not guilty — he chose |
| Justice comes from | The gods and the state | Human beings themselves |
| Purpose of law | End the cycle of vengeance | End oppression |
| Aspect | The Oresteia | The Flies |
|---|
| Form / language | Verse; poetic, lyrical, flamboyant; classical, refined, allegorical | Prose; prosaic, direct, postmodern, slang; sarcastic |
| Genre | Tragedy (trilogy) | Tragi-comedy (one play) |
| Chorus | Yes (major role) | No |
| Animalism | PRESENT IN BOTH — the standing “what do they share?” answer |
| Prologue/epilogue | Neither play has one |
| Unities | Agamemnon & Lib. Bearers: time + place. Eumenides: time only | Neither; several days |
| Gender | Feminist touches; Clytemnestra powerful, dominant, intelligent | Misogynistic; Clytemnestra weak, ugly, submissive |
| Politics | Apolitical; affirms Athenian institutions | Political; anti-Nazi; calls for democracy |
| The people | Passive, confused | Oppressed but complicit |
| Ending | Reconciliation | Departure / liberation, ongoing struggle |
| Man's role | Victim of fate | Author of destiny |
| Meaning is… | Found externally (divine order) | Created internally (self-definition) |
The confusion of pleasing the gods — four laws, each forcing the crime the next one punishes:
XENIA → ARTEMIS → APOLLO → FURIES
1. Zeus (hospitality): Paris must be punished → war. 2. Artemis (the young): opposes the slaughter → demands Iphigenia. 3. Apollo: commands Orestes to avenge → matricide. 4. The Furies: punish matricide.
Conclusion: the Greek gods are not a coherent moral system.
The allegory, decoded. Aegistheus = Hitler / the Nazi occupation. Clytemnestra = Vichy collaboration (the one students forget). The Argives = the French, trapped by guilt and fear. Orestes = the Resistance fighter. Zeus = the Church, and also Hitler.
Why Greek? The mask let him attack tyranny without naming the Nazis. The censors saw only a Greek myth.
The Flies — symbols
| The flies | Guilt, remorse, the oppressive presence of the gods |
| Statue of Zeus | False gods; authority is only as strong as belief in it |
| Dead Men's Day | The culture of guilt; living for the dead |
| The great stone | Repression; the past weighing on the present |
| Furies at the end | Liberation — he takes the guilt away with him |
| The open door | Freedom, possibility, the future (both leaves) |
| The white dress | Rebellion (NOT innocence) |
Glossary — she uses these definitions verbatim
| Paganism | Disbelief in heavenly religions |
| Fatalism | People are powerless against fate |
| Predestination | All events willed by the god(s) |
| Hubris | Dangerous pride; arrogance before the gods |
| Libation | Sacrifice to underground spirits: water, honey, milk |
| Matricide | Killing one's mother (patricide = father) |
| Scapegoat | Someone sacrificed to please gods or appease others |
| Bad faith | Pretending one is not free; blaming others |
| Authenticity | Owning one's freedom and accepting responsibility |
| Anguish | The terror of total responsibility (not grief) |
| Nihilism | Belief in nothingness; rejection of all values |
| Absurdism | Meaninglessness — started with Camus |
The ten sentences that answer the most marks — if you memorise nothing else
- Seven of Aeschylus' ~90 plays survive; the Oresteia is the only complete trilogy. He introduced the second actor. A vulture dropped a turtle on his head.
- Apollo commands the matricide; Athena judges and casts the deciding vote on a tied jury of ten; the Furies become the Eumenides — honoured, not defeated.
- The curse began with Atreus' cannibal banquet, not with Iphigenia. Aegisthus is Thyestes' only surviving son and Agamemnon's cousin.
- In Aeschylus, Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon alone, in the bath, with three blows. In Sartre, Aegistheus kills him with an axe.
- Aeschylus' Orestes kills for revenge, on Apollo's order. Sartre's Orestes kills for freedom, driven by Electra, commanded by no one.
- The flies are the Furies, and the Furies are remorse. Only Electra can see them, because only she accepts guilt.
- “Once freedom lights its beacon in a man's heart, the gods are powerless against him” — said by ZEUS, not Orestes. The secret of gods and kings is that men are free and do not know it.
- Electra begins existentialist (white dress, the dance) and ends a slave begging Zeus. Orestes begins empty and ends free. They cross over.
- Aegistheus = Hitler/Nazi occupation. Clytemnestra = Vichy. Argives = the French. Orestes = the Resistance. Zeus = the Church and Hitler. Written and premiered in occupied Paris, June 1943.
- Oresteia: verse, chorus, polytheism, fatalism, feminist touches, apolitical, ends in reconciliation. The Flies: prose, no chorus, atheism, existentialism, misogynistic, political, ends in departure. Shared feature: animal imagery.