Thyestes

In a play that explores the way human desires and wickedness contravene the natural order, it is no surprise that the natural world becomes a particularly prevalent symbol. In the world of the play, Atreus’s horrific revenge causes the sun to turn back in its course. Even before Atreus carries out his revenge the firmament shakes, foreshadowing what is to come. Animal imagery is also part of the play’s sustained engagement with the natural world. Thyestes, when he comes on stage, reflects on his exile “in the wild / with animals, and like them” (413-14), and as the play wears on, his character only becomes more bestial. First, Thyestes turns into a “beast […] tangled in the nets” (491) of his brother Atreus, and later he is shown eating in a peculiarly animalistic way as he “rips apart his sons” (778). As Thyestes turns into an animal, so too does Atreus. He likens his dark desires to an “Umbrian hound” (497), and in the Messenger’s speech is compared to a tigress and a lion as he kills Thyestes’s sons.