In the three plays of the Oresteia by Aeschylus, legal issues are discussed and used as important motivations for much of the action. Different legal metaphors are utilized in the first two plays, culminating in the courtroom references and structure of the third play, The Eumenides. The first two plays in the trilogy present an image of private vengeance as something that goes against the grain of the law, while the third play emphasizes the need to replace this private vengeance with the rule of law, embodied here in the courtroom. Throughout, the actions of the leaders of Athens determine the fate of the society of that city, whether the people prosper or not, because the gods--her represented by the Eumenides, will punish the entire region for the transgressions of the House of Atreus.
In the first two plays, Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers, the legal issues are played out in the kingdom in terms of the clash between mother and daughter. Clytaemnestra and Electra have very different natures, though both women are devoted to revenge. Clytaemnestra takes revenge on her husband, Agamemnon, not simply because she has a lover but because Agamemnon had killed her first husband and her child. Her vengeance is thus bound with her sexuality and with the way Agamemnon had forced her to submit to him. Electra is non-sexual in her behavior--though she has been married off by her mother, she does not consummate the marriage. Her entire being is shaped to revenge for the death of her father, and she torments her brother until he fulfills what she sees as his duty and kills Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra. The law as well is presented in terms of the ability of society to wreak vengeance for the ills committed against it.
It is the Watchman who first speaks of Clytaemnestra and does so in a way that shows he believes all is right with her and her husband. At the same time, he sees her as somewhat tyrannical given that she has had h...