The symbolic featuring of justice in the entire trilogy, specially in the third one is to highlight the transition of ancient self-help justice by individual revenge or battles to the administration of justice by trial sanctioned by the gods. Precisely, the term justice is used to signifies the passage from a primitive Greek society governed by instincts to a modern democratic society governed by reason. In the plays, the Erinyes represent the ancient, primitive laws which demand blood vengeance. In contrast, Apollo, and particularly Athena, represent the new order of reason and civilization and the role of justice thru the trilogy is to represent that transition in the ancient Greek society which was moving towards a modern democratic society.
One thought on “What kind of commentary on justice does the trilogy (especially the third play?) contain?”
Comments are closed.
I agree with that the ancient Greek society was moving towards a modern democratic society. Before the third play, people achieve justice through brutual revenge. In third play, Athena starts to establish a court in order to determine a person is guilty or not. It shows that Athenians are moving towards a more civilized and rational society.