Revisiting the Quintessential Femme Fatale: A Study of Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra in Agamemnon
Abstract:
The evil, deadly and sexually seductive woman set out on a mission to destroy men has been a universal figure prominent in literature across varied cultures and time periods. These femmes are essentially identified either as vamps or as sexually voracious women. The stereotype of the femme fatale therefore generally reduces the representation of these women to merely dangerous and sexually overt women. Such a tapered view of femme fatales prevent a comprehensive discussion on their multidimensional representations. The present paper, through the character of Clytemnestra, the Mycenaean queen, as represented in Aeschylus’s play Agamemnon, questions this restricted view of femme fatales. Clytemnestra certainly establishes her identity as one of the earliest examples of a femme fatales by mercilessly executing her husband Agamemnon but in the process, also foregrounds the need to reevaluate our narrow understanding of the said term. While Clytemnestra concretizes her identity as a femme fatale in terms of her cold and cunning demeanor, her feminine charm, her manipulative power, her deceptive speech and her immaculate planning and successful execution of Agamemnon through means of treachery, she does not necessarily use her sexuality to lure men with the aim of bringing about their downfall. Clytemnestra certainly uses her womanly charm and verbal dexterity but not her body. The paper highlights that seduction and violence, the attributes quintessentially associated with femme fatales, are not ends in themselves and in fact stem from various social and psychological reasons that must be investigated.
Key Words: Femme Fatale, Feminism, Clytemnestra, Patriarchy.
The French term, femme fatale, meaning the fatal woman is an archetype in art for a seductive and dangerous woman threatening the life of men. The conventional image of a femme fatale is that of a beautiful and alluring woman who entices men into dicey and minacious situations. Patrick Bade defines femme fatales as “malignant, threatening, destructive and fascinating” (9) women. Similarly Annette Kuhn elaborates that “the femme fatale is primarily defined by her desirable, but dangerous, sexuality – which brings about the downfall of the male protagonist” (154). Although conventionally associated with the film noir era of the 1940s and 1950s, the image of femme fatale has been conspicuous in literature since the very beginning with Eve being regarded as the archetypal femme fatale. As Stevie Simkin observes, “the beautiful yet deadly woman is as old as the earliest Judaeo – Christian scriptures and Greek myths” (21). This femme has appeared and reappeared in art and popular culture – mythology, classical antiquity, medieval Europe, Victorian literature, and noir and neo- noir cinema – at different times.
Clytemnestra, the queen of Mycenae, is the subject of diverse representations in the Greek tradition, from Homeric epics to classical drama. The famous wife of King Agamemnon, often remembered as the woman who murdered her husband and for the ambiguity and complexity of her character, she may be regarded as one of the finest representatives of the femme fatale in antiquity. In Homer’s Odyssey, the Greek queen is denied a voice and identity of her own for her story is narrated by other characters like Agamemnon, Odysseus, Nestor and Telemachus. Clytemnestra herself does not make an appearance and therefore is proscribed from proffering her own story. It is in Aeschylus’s play Agamemnon that we witness the queen in all her glory for the first time, in flesh and blood and with a voice of her own.
Aeschylus’s Clytemnestra perfectly embodies the characteristics of the conventional femme fatale – a cold and cunning woman. The very first mention of Clytemnestra in the play, made by the chorus, presents her as an authoritative woman who had been ruling Myceane for the last ten years in the absence of her husband as well as a scheming wife waiting to attack him on his return home. They refer to her as “the architect of vengeance / growing strong in the house / with no fear of the husband / here she waits …. / Memory womb of Fury child-avenging Fury!” (150-56). The chorus thus highlights her vindictive temperament and anticipate a reaction from the queen upon the King’s arrival. They seem to be fearful of the queen’s backlash and although they neither support nor oppose her, they present to the readers the image of a dangerous woman planning and plotting against her husband.
In Aeschylus’s play, Clytemnestra emerges as one of the most powerful speakers exhibiting prodigious verbal dexterity. Although her verbal prowess is exhibited at its finest in the carpet scene, she gives evidence of her rhetoric throughout her speeches in the play. She uses ambiguous words, intentionally creating polarity between what she says and is understood by the listener and what she actually means. This becomes evident during her conversation with the chorus before Agamemnon’s return when, in order to present herself as a naive and faithful wife she says, “In love with a new lord, in ill repute I am as practised as I am in dyeing bronze” (607 – 608). While on the surface Clytemnestra’s words merely posit her fidelity towards her husband, a deeper inspection reveals the surplus meaning and irony in her deceptive statement. Clytemnestra’s affair with Aegisthus is an open secret with the chorus also suspicious of it. She therefore is well ‘practiced’ in the field of adultery and her innocent reference to ‘bronze’ foreshadows her use of bronze in the murder of Agamemnon that would ultimately ‘dye’ in the colour of blood. Her use of such deceptive speech thus clearly gives evidence of her cunning.
Her welcome of Agamemnon to Argos marks another scene that exemplifies her identity as a femme fatale who is adept in the art of deception and who possesses “a facility to take on different personae in order to mask her true intentions, feelings or identity” (Simkin 29). Despite her seething anger and detestation for the King, Clytemnestra acts as the faithful and compliant wife offering him a welcome worthy of a hero. She greets Agamemnon thus:
I would salute that man the watchdog of the fold,
the mainroyal, saving stay of the vessel,
rooted oak that thrusts the roof sky-high,
the father's one true heir. . . .
Come to me now, my dearest, down from the car of war, but never set the foot that stamped out Troy on earth again, my great one.
Women, why delay? You have your orders. Pave his way with tapestries. (887- 900)
Conforming to role of the acquiescent wife, yielding submission and obedience to her husband and exhibiting her reverence to him, she presents the image of a conventional wife within the patriarchal set up of Argos. While her protestations of love and her words of praise present her as a wife who abides by the patriarchal order, her speech succour her true intention of ensnaring her husband into a false sense of security. As McClure observes, Clytemnestra “retains feminine and feminizing qualities; her exotic and extravagant rhetoric affiliates her with the oriental courtier skilled in flattering tyrants” (80). Her protracted speech in which she claims her love for her husband and commends him for his political and military adroitness succeeds in convincing Agamemnon of her affection and devotion towards him. With the same convincing power, she unflinchingly defends the absence of Orestes from the palace without a seed of doubt being planted in the mind of Agamemnon. The true reason for her decision to send away Orestes to Agamemnon's associate, King Strophius of Phocis, is of course to prevent him from interfering in her plan to murder his father but she presents such a reason before the King that he easily believes her. Clytemnestra claims that in the absence of Agamemnon, she feared that the men of Argos would claim anarchy by assassinating her and Orestes, the heir to the royal family. She convinces Agamemnon that she had only the best interest of the kingdom in her mind and as such succeeds in winning his confidence. Interestingly, Clytemnestra during her conversation with the King, very ingeniously, avoids any mention of Iphigenia, the deceased daughter, the primary reason behind her treacherous plan of Agamemnon’s murder. This again is an intentional act on the part of queen to stave off any suspicion on Agamemnon’s part. Thus, Clytemnestra much like a femme fatale, uses her charm, formidable speech and persuasive power to lull Agamemnon into a false sense of reliability.
Clytemnestra’s use of deceptive persuasion in the Carpet scene again evinces her entrancing spell. After greeting her long absent husband with words of love and admiration on his return, she entreats him to enter the palace by treading on the red carpet spread in his honour. While initially refusing to abide by his wife’s request, fearing the wrath of Gods that he would invite upon himself by daring to perform such a transgressive act, when Agamemnon eventually relents, he transforms his image from a conqueror to the one now being conquered by his wife. The King of Argos, the man who brings about the fall of Troy, yields to the demand of his wife who as such succeeds in proving him unworthy of elders’ trust. In this scene however, unlike the previous one, Clytemnestra assumes a position of authority, “her expert use of persuasion allows the queen to gain control over her husband, forcing him to yield to her authority through the treading of the cloth” (McClure 80). She successfully dismisses all his reasons to not step on the red carpet, alters his perception and once again entraps him in her web of words that she very cunningly weaves.
The American Pulp fiction of 1940- 1950 popularized the image of a femme fatale as “a calculating murderer who could execute her crimes flawlessly . . . through the guise of the good wife” (Jennings 28). Clytemnestra perfectly embodies this representation of femme fatale who eventually murders her nemesis in a very calculated manner. The murder of Agamemnon at the hands of his wife was not an impulsive act carried out in the spur of the moment rather a well calculated and perfectly chalked out plan of action. In the very opening scene of the play, the beacon system set up by Clytemnestra, the relay of torches signaling the fall of troy and the return of the Greeks, gives evidence of her plan which she had set into motion even before the arrival of the King. While outwardly the beacon light was supposed to signal Clytemnestra of the King’s return so that she could prepare for his grand reception, the true motive behind it was to alert her so that she could initiate her secret plan. The manner in which Clytemnestra manages the entire scene ever since Agamemnon’s arrival exhibits the forethought that had gone into every aspect of her action. She first makes an overt display of her ability to manipulate her husband by convincing him to walk on the red tapestry and then lures him with the idea of a comfortable bath that eventually turns out to be his last. In the end, Agamemnon falls prey to the act of a conventional, devoted wife played out by Clytemnestra. Much in the tradition of a femme fatale, Clytemnestra exploits “the male fantasy of the image of the good wife and mother by embodying that role and using it to conceal her murderous deeds” (Jennings 29). By killing Agamemnon in the bath of his own palace, she chooses the hearth as the perfect place to end the tyranny of the patriarch. She declares, “Here is Agamemnon, my husband made a corpse by this right hand - a masterpiece of Justice. Done is done” (1429- 1431). While she assumes the role of the quintessential loving wife, by murdering her husband by the end of the scene, she questions and topples the conventional gender roles, “What outrage, the woman kills the man” (1241). The Greek femme fatale refuses to exhibit any remorse, remains absolutely unapologetic and instead of the expected public display of penitence, she assumes full responsibility for Agamemnon’s death.
While Clytemnestra concretizes her identity as a femme fatale in terms of her cold and cunning demeanor, her feminine charm, her manipulative power, her deceptive speech and her immaculate planning and successful execution of Agamemnon through means of treachery, she does not necessarily use her sexuality to lure men with the aim of bringing about their downfall. Clytemnestra certainly uses her womanly charm and verbal dexterity but not her body. She therefore stands out from the stereotypical image of femme fatale propagated by noir fims where the woman is highly sexual, “the epitome of sexual extravagance – an excessive sexual spectacle – rather than a more complex and multilayered character” (Blyth 42). Clytemnestra is certainly portrayed as a woman who breaks the law of sexual conduct by indulging in an affair with Aegisthus instead of patiently waiting for her absent husband and she openly declares her love for her lover before the people of Argos after committing her husband’s murder but she does not, in the manner of the conventional noir femme fatales, present herself as a sexual seductress. Even her relationship with Aegisthus, as portrayed by Aeschylus, is one of mutual love and affection. She does not seduce or ensnare him with her seductive charm but appreciates his loyalty towards her, “I swear my hopes will never walk the halls of fear so long as Aegisthus lights the fire on my hearth. Loyal to me as always. . .” (1461-62). In fact, such straitened view of femme fatales, focused primarily on their sexual appeal, restricts a comprehensive discourse and discussion on their multifaceted portrayal. As Grossman observes, “Most femme fatale are sexual, but that’s not their main appeal – the main appeal is the female’s commitment to fulfil her desire” (3). This holds true in case of Clytemnestra. More than anything else, she is governed by her desire to seek revenge and murder Agamemnon. From the very beginning of the play, all her actions are directed towards the same end and she eventually succeeds in executing her plan.
The quintessential image of femme fatale as “the evil woman” (Kaplan 31) sans any moral scruples, set out to destroy men without any rationale also needs to be revised. As Grossman notes, instead of just focusing on the actions of these women, there is a need to examine “the sympathies they elicit and the men and social institutions that are . . . unresponsive to their needs, unreceptive to their powers, and uninterested in their desires” (Grossman 16). Clytemnestra is often vilified as the “bad wife” (Swift 86) and the evil woman of Greek mythology and tragedy with little emphasis on her trying circumstance and the failings of her husband. While Homer, by completely negating the story of Iphigenia and emphasizing the illicit love affair of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, establishes the image of Clytemnestra as a woman who murders her husband solely for the sake of her new lover, Aeschylus justifies her actions primarily on the basis of her maternal fury. As Clytemnestra declares,
And now you sentence me? -you banish me from the city, curses breathing down my neck? But he . . . he sacrificed his own child, our daughter, the agony I laboured into love to charm away the savage winds of Thrace. Didn't the law demand you banish him? - hunt him from the land for all his guilt? But now you witness what I've done and you are ruthless judges. (1440- 1448)
It is the cold blooded murder of her innocent daughter, Iphigenia, at the hands of Agamemnon, who mercilessly sacrificed her in order to appease goddess Artemis in exchange for favourable winds to commence his expedition to Troy in search of his brother Menalaus’s wife Helen, which eventually propels her to seek justice. In the patriarchal set up of Argos that offered no help to the wailing mother and instead praised the King who sacrificed his daughter for the upliftment of his kingdom, that questioned the queen’s affair with Aegisthus but readily accepted the king’s sexual liaisons with several women, where fathers could kill daughters but any crime committed by women was unfathomable and where women had no legal recourse at their disposal, there lies no means of seeking justice other than murdering the culprit which is what Clytemnestra ultimately resorts to in the end. This analysis evinces the fact that femme fatales like Clytemnestra, who exude the image of resilient and strong women, “are actually victims whose strength, perverse by conventional standards, keeps them from submitting to gendered social institutions that oppress them” (Grossman 3). As already discussed, it is not a senseless murder committed in a moment of frenzy but a well thought out action against the perpetrator in the absence of any social or legal alternative.
Conclusion:
Clytemnestra therefore forces the readers to revisit and re-examine our assumption of the quintessential femme fatale. The dangerous, violent and conniving monstrous woman is also a victim of patriarchal abuse and brutality. Instead of associating these archetypal women primarily with their sexual appeal and violence, a deeper analysis highlights the need to recognize and acknowledge their strength to challenge the patriarchal system as well as the conventional gender roles. The Greek queen Clytemnestra is an intelligent, persuasive, strong and uninhibited woman who refuses to cower down before the barbarous king. Her life, as it appears in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon is guided by the sole purpose of seeking justice for her daughter, Iphigenia, and subsequently for herself. Forsaken by the patriarchal set up of the Greek society that fails to offer any help or consolation, she takes it upon herself to seek justice and in the process becomes one of the earliest examples of women in literature foregrounding their capacity to “wreak high ruin” (Pffeifer 98). She is a potent symbol of unencumbered power, a femme fatale who is multidimensional and not merely a silhouette of seductive women.
Works Cited: