Agamemnon and Ulysses both fought in the Trojan war and then set out to return home. Agamemnon managed to go directly home, but Odysseus had offended Poseidon and was made to wander for many years before he was able to make his way home. Each man had a wife waiting for him, though these women show very different natures while at the same time reflecting the fact that they have very different husbands. Clytaemnestra has a lover and is plotting the death of her husband, but she has reason for doing so given that he killed one of her children. Penelope is dutifully waiting for her husband to return as she is surrounded by suitors who want Odysseus's kingdom. The two women have different reactions not only to their husbands but to their children, and each story shows a social complexity that helps shape the reactions of the women. Each woman possesses a role in society. penelope accepts her role, while Clytaemnestra fights against hers.
In the Oresteia, Clytaemnestra and Electra, mother and daughter, have very different sexual 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.
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 him lying on the roof for a year waiting to see the beacon light. The Watchman ...