Furies

The Furies are the pursuers of Orestes in the book’s reference to Aeschylus’s Oresteia. They appear in an explanatory note rather than in a narrated scene, where their pursuit gives the myth’s cycle of family violence a consequence that continues beyond the act of revenge itself.

Identity and Role

The note identifies the Furies as the forces that pursue and torment Orestes after he kills his mother. It presents them not as participants in the killing but as its aftermath: Orestes’s act does not end the violence surrounding his family, but exposes him to a further reckoning.

The Oresteia’s Chain of Vengeance

The surrounding account traces the events that lead to the Furies’ pursuit. Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War after sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia; Clytemnestra, who has taken a lover, intends to kill him and does so. Their son Orestes then kills Clytemnestra to avenge his father. The Furies’ pursuit follows this matricide, extending the conflict from one generation’s violence into the next act of retaliation.

Place in the Book

The reference supplies a compact classical parallel for a story-world in which suffering and violence carry consequences beyond a single deed. Its specific contribution is the image of the avenger becoming pursued in turn. The evidence identifies the Furies through this mythic allusion, not as characters who enter the book’s narrated action.