The female and male conflict has always been an ongoing battle for so many years, where they both struggle for dominance and power. The Furies also were known as The Eumenide s had a division between the sexes and the gender roles played an active part in a series of conflicts.
The number one conflict comes in between the female Chorus of Furies and male Apollo. Apollo who was the lord of light was infuriated that Corus, a female, would dare defy his orders. On the other hand, The Furies react with anger and wrath since Apollo infringed their realm of vengeance and punishment. They both stand in the trial, each of them trying to convince Athena to turn against the other. The second conflict happens when Orestes is on trial for killing his mother, which the Furies interpret as a very terrible sin. Apollo gave Orestes the order to kill his mother; since she had killed his father which was a violation of the bond between a husband and wife. In this scenario, Apollo is arguing that the life of a woman is worth less than that of a man.
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As the myth goes Athena, their leader, sprang fully-grown from her father Zeus’s head and this gives Apollo the chance to argue that men alone are responsible for the creation of children, an indication that the children have a higher loyalty to their fathers than to their mothers. In this case, Athena is a leader full of contradiction because, on the one hand, she is a strong and independent woman who in any scenario would be expected to help her fellow women, but she chooses to side with the masculine Apollo and Orestes and helps to defeat the Female Furies. Even if Athena is a symbol of the feminine power, she stills bows down to the patriarchy.
In conclusion, The Eumenides represents a strict divide between ideas and characters which serves as a tale of justice and civilization. The whole story reminds us of vengeance and savagery where the men prevail over the women, where the women’s thoughts and ideas are never listened to or given a chance to prevail.
