earticle

영어

This paper discusses the shaping of a tragic plot from traditional myth in Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy. To analyze its plot-structure, it is assumed that the plot is shaped by a combination of story patterns repeated and varied in traditional myth as well as in the genre of tragedy. The story patterns we can find in Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy are as follows: return(nostos), discovery(anagnōrisis), intrigue(mēchanēma), revenge, sacrifice, exile, supplication(hikesia), and salvation(sotēria). The shaping of a tragic plot in this work, as this paper intends to show, depends mainly on the principle of reversal. The conqueror, for example, is turned into the defeated one, the deceiver into the deceived, the sacrificial to the sacrificed, and the revenger into the one being revenged upon, etc. To sum up, the tragic myth generated by the shaping of the tragic plot in this work can be characterized by the following points: 1. The tragic myth highlights the conflict of the gods, the ambivalence of their plan for humans, and the evolution of the gods, especially on the concept of justice. 2. The tragic myth emphasizes not only the inevitable fate determined by the gods for humans, but also human free will and its consequences. 3. The tragic myth mainly dramatizes the conflict and murder in a household (oikos) which forms the core of city state(polis). 4. The tragic myth reveals the city state of Athenai's strategy to appropriate the myth of Pelops line.