Agamemnon Lesson Plan

How do Cassandra's prophecies serve to propel the play's action toward its climax?

Cassandra's string of prophecies dramatically heightens the sense of imminent disaster that has been steadily building since the very beginning of the play. The pace moves rapidly in this section. The speeches are more clipped, especially Cassandra's utterances. She reaches an extremely high pitch and intensity as she expresses now abstrusely now, with sharp clarity, the anguish she experiences because of her unique faculty. Some disaster will befall the house very soon; it is a foregone conclusion. But tragedy grinds on: once the machine is in motion, it can be delayed but not stopped....