Thyestes

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 65

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Summary

Background

Act Summaries & Analyses

Acts I-II

Act III

Acts IV-V

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Character Analysis

Thyestes

Thyestes, the play’s titular character, is a grandson of Tantalus and the brother of Atreus. There is a tension in the play itself between how Atreus views Thyestes and how Thyestes himself comes across. We first see Thyestes through Atreus’s eyes as cruel, calculating, and ambitious—in other words, as no different from Atreus himself. Thus, on a few occasions, Atreus justifies his revenge by arguing that he must destroy Thyestes before Thyestes destroys him: “He will kill me, or I him; / the winner is the one who gets there first” (203-04). Atreus thus construes his revenge as “the kind of thing my brother / would wish he had done himself” (194-95). Atreus clearly is basing his view on the way Thyestes has behaved in the past, by seducing Atreus’s wife and stealing his kingdom—crimes to which Thyestes himself confesses.

Nevertheless, the Thyestes presented in the play seems, at least at first glance, to depart from Atreus’s portrait. When Thyestes arrives on stage, he is drawn more like an unwilling victim than anything else. At several points he even comes close to embracing a life of philosophical retirement, especially when he tells his son that it would be wisest to forget his kingdom and “to choose bad fortune over good” (454). This moment of Stoic reflection, however, does not last: Thyestes finally does return to Argos, and even accepts Atreus’s offer to share the throne despite his initial resolve to reject it. The play thus suggests that Thyestes is not as indifferent to power as he claims to be, that he is being pulled in several different directions: Intellectually, he holds the philosophical values of the Stoics (and the Chorus), but on a deeper level, he is unable to shake off the same terrible desires that afflict his brother.

Thyestes is thus caught between happiness and fear even before he finds out about his brother’s revenge, no more able to control his emotions than Atreus. Most significant of all, by the end of the play Thyestes wants only revenge on Atreus, just as at the beginning of the play Atreus wanted nothing but revenge on Thyestes. It seems, then, that Atreus was right about his brother after all, and that Thyestes was merely deluding himself about his own nature.

Atreus

The cruel Atreus is a particularly shocking character, with some critics arguing that he reflects tyrannical Roman emperors, such as Caligula and Nero, who ruled during Seneca’s time. Atreus is Thyestes’s brother. When the play begins, the two have been embroiled in a long feud that had culminated previously in Thyestes’s seduction of Atreus’s wife Aerope. As a result, Atreus finds that he cannot be certain about the paternity of his putative sons Agamemnon and Menelaus, and at several points in the play contemplates tests to find out whether he or Thyestes is the true father. He sees his victory at the end of the play as proof of his paternity.

Atreus is a character who desires and even lusts for evil. In Act II, he goads himself to devise the kind of revenge that “history will condemn / but never cease to speak of” (192-93), viewing it as weakness to do anything less. At the end of the play, even this is not enough, and Atreus laments that his vengeance “is a failure” (1067) because he did not go far enough. Atreus’s hunger for power is unquenchable. Over the course of the play, Atreus goes far beyond any typical king or even tyrant, filling the role of human, animal, and even god. He embraces all the most terrible of human appetites. He is likened in the play to dogs and wild cats, and in Act V, he declares that he is “level with the stars, I rise above the world / touching heaven’s axis with my exalted head” (885-86), before proclaiming, “Yes! I am God! Highest of all the powers, / and King of Kings!” (911-12). Atreus believes that he is above morality. He is able to exert supreme control and mastery over the entire reality of the play, and does so completely unpunished—although later myths detail his own downfall at the hands of Aegisthus, another son later sired by Thyestes.

Chorus

Like many of Seneca’s choruses—and in contrast to those of Greek tragedies—the Chorus of Thyestes lacks a developed identity of their own. Who they are is never made clear, though they are presumably citizens of Argos. A convention of ancient drama, the Chorus is useful for dividing the action of the play. Their odes, which are well-integrated into the action, introduce reflections on the central themes of the play, including The Destructive Power of Desire and The Meaning and Nature of Power. They exhibit a worldview colored by traditional piety but also by philosophy, especially Stoic philosophy.

The Chorus thus recognizes the weaknesses of Atreus (and Thyestes) and the flaws with his definition of kingship. At the same time, the Chorus can be naive and even self-deceiving at times, as in Ode 3 when they seem to think that Atreus has truly forgiven his brother. By the end of the play, though, the Chorus realizes that there is no escape from the horror of Tantalus’s descendants and even wonders if the world is ending.