Between Oresteia and Twelfth Night, compare and contrast the overall Rite of Passages. What are some similarities? What are major differences? And based on those works, what is each author's opinion of what a Rite of Passage is and what influences it?
The most notable difference between the two portrayals of the Rite of Passage is the scope of the process. Oresteia follows the Rite of Passage of a particular societal institution (the justice/legal system), whereas Twelfth Night follows the Rite of Passage of individuals as they fall into love and into gender roles. Oresteia portrays the transformation of the Greek justice system from that of "an eye for an eye" to one of fair trial, as epitomized by the trial that Apollo leads on behalf of Orestes. The emphasis here is on the transformation of a society. Twelfth Night, however, follows the transformation of several individuals as they discover who they are in terms of gender and love- a realization that for Viola and Olivia ultimately uncovers who they are as individuals. The emphasis in Twelfth Night is ultimately placed on the connection between coming to terms with gender roles, falling in love, and ultimately discovering oneself.
ReplyDeleteSince Alex just said everything, I'' take a different approach. The biggest difference I think is that the characters in Twelfth Night didn't really appear to have a rite of passage. I suppose Viola did, but none of the other characters seemed mature to me. Falling in love because someone likes you or completely ignores you is not being a grown up. While Oresteia had a better rite of passage, the Twelfth Night was a more enjoyable book.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't really see a similar rite of passage between the Oresteia and Twelth Night except maybe that Clytemnestra fell in love with the wrong man when her husband was away, which I don't think she did I believe it was lust, but that might be a similarity since everyone in the Twelth Night fell in love with the wrong person. But there are a lot of differences, for one in the Oresteia it was more about avenging your dead relative and finding your honor but in the Twelth Night it was about falling in love and how that love was interchangeable in the end. Based on the Shakespeare that I've read, which isn't much, he has a lot of rites of passages but most involve love whereas with Aeschylus he was all about making the story a tragedy and retelling it how it suited his purpose, you could say that its about love but its about revenge and they use love as an excuse to take revenge.
ReplyDeleteI think i have to disagree slightly with Alex...I feel like Orestes in Orestia showed some specific character Rite of Passage, although, it really wasn't what we would traditionally see to be the Rite of Passage. Kind of like what we discussed in class, Orestes had to go through the process of revenging his father to become the new Head of the family. And i agree with Kaleigh that in the sense that I didn't see any clear Rite of Passage in Twelfth Night...
ReplyDeleteI believe that Oresteia did have a clear rite of passage, Oretes was defending his father's honor and in doing so he had a very important decision to make. He could have refused to defend his father, but he went through with it. His rite of passage was influenced by outsiders, such as the gods and even the chorus even had a say. In most rites of passage an urging is needed from an outside force or from your conscience which i think thats what the gods were portrayed as. In The Twelfth Night I had a hard time seeing the rites of passage that were trying to be portrayed. I believe that Shakespeare wanted the reader to see falling in love as finding yourself and growing up. But the foolish love that happened between so many of the characters gave me a hard time seeing love as a rite of passage.
ReplyDeleteI had a difficult time seeing a rite of passage in both these books. I agree with Taylor G. though, I feel as though neither of these books were written with the main focus being a coming of age story. Aeschylus' Oresteia was a tragic story of revenge and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was a comic story of love. The only character I really saw as having a coming of age moment was Viola. She grew by disguising herself as a man and falling in love. The other characters in this book seemed immature at the beginning and still immature at the end.
ReplyDeleteI don't think while yes these books weren't written for the exclusive purpose of discussing rites of passages, but if you look at archetypal literature, rites of passages of the main characters are always present, though they don't have to be clearly defined.
ReplyDeleteI think we are all in agreement that the development in each book isn't very deep, so I'll take a different approach. If you take a simple glance at each book, they are pretty similar (at least if you're looking for a simple underlying concept). The coming of age moments are clear (Orestes killing his father; Viola declaring her love for the Duke), and while not very "deep", they both illustrate a point where each character was inducted, so to speak, into a higher state of mind. So yeah, when taken at a glance, this "enlightenment" of sorts is really what binds the works together.
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