1. Both Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes and Sophocles’ Electra on siblings and c

1. Both Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes and Sophocles’ Electra on siblings and children of cursed
families. Compare and contrast how the children in these two plays deal with the fallout of their
parents’ behavior: think about how they interact with their siblings, how their actions are
shaped by the past and attempt to shape the future, and the role of pollution in both narratives.
Why do you think the plays place significance on the actions of the children rather than adults?
2. Both Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, in some way, attend to the
responsibilities of rulers. Compare and contrast how Oedipus and Agamemnon are as rulers,
how they treat their people, and how their people view them. Do you sense their hamartiai
(great missteps), and thus their tragedies, are related to their positions of power?
3. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, we’ve seen our hero fall into ill-fated circumstances that are
out of his control—unlike many of the other characters we’ve read about, who have had a
pretty substantial amount of agency in their own downfalls. How exactly is this play a tragedy?
Is there anyway Oedipus could have escaped his tragedy?
4. The mythos of Orestes and the House of Atreus is taken up by both Aeschylus and
Sophocles in their plays, respectively, Agamemnon and Electra. Do you sense any discrepancies in
how these writers approach the material? Do they handle it differently? Perhaps you should
look to specific characters (like Clytemnestra and Aegisthus) in both plays to see whether
Sophocles’ play is a satisfactory continuation of Aeschylus’ work.
Length: 1000–1250 words
Format: Double-spaced. Font should be Times New Roman 12-point (or equivalent in a different
font). Name, course, date of submission in the upper left corner, title centered, page numbers in the
upper right corner.