Is this a Greek tragedy: father kills eldest son, younger son seeks revenge?

Question

I was watching a gangster movie the other night and the plot seemed oddly familiar to me but I couldn't place it. Anyways, the eldest son of a gang boss kills a member of the rival gang. The father wants to keep the peace with the rival gang so he kills his own son. Younger brother secretly witnesses the killing and then waits years before attacking the rival gang. Father realizes his son is on to him so he asks his illegitimate son by his mistress kill the other son.

Answer 1

It doesn't specifically match any of the surviving Greek tragedies, but the closest I can think of to this set of events is the Oresteia, a trilogy (really four parts, but the fourth, a satyr play, is lost) by Aeschylus. The backstory is that over ten years earlier, Agamemnon killed a deer that was sacred to Artemis and boasted that he was a better hunter. When he prepared to set sail to sack Troy with his brother, Menelaus, over the abduction of Menelaus' wife, Helen, Artemis prevented his ships from being able to sail until he sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia. His wife, Clytemnestra, witnessed this event.

So, in the first part, Agamemnon, the titular character is returning from the Trojan war. Clytemnestra is waiting for him to return so that she, and her lover, Aegisthus, can kill him. They do so, and openly admit to it.

In the second part, Clytemnestra has enslaved Agamemnon's surviving daughter, Electra, and sends her off to pour libations on his grave. There she meets his surviving son, Orestes, who has just returned. The two plot to kill both Clytemnestra and Aegisthus under Apollo's sanction because justice demands that their father be avenged. They do so (well, Orestes does all of the killing), and immediately afterwards the Furies start tormenting him for the crime of killing his own mother (never mind that he did it in the name of justice).

In the third part, The Eumenides, the Furies continue to torment him until he is successfully defended in a trial that's presided over by Athena. Noone of significance dies in this play.

Euripides also wrote four plays (in this case, the first play is the one that was lost) dealing with the same basic story, but further confused the scenario by having Artemis secretly switch Iphigenia with a deer right before Agamemnon would have sacrificed her (how he failed to notice this is never explained). After the trial took place, the Furies continued to torment Orestes in spite of the outcome being in his favor, and they end up chasing him to Tauris, where he ends up being reunited with Iphigenia.

It's possible that this is actually closer to one of the Shakespearian tragedies, but I'm not as familiar with them outside of the three core works (Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, and the Scottish play). Regardless, between the Greek tragedies and Shakespeare, there are quite a few that fall into the Everybody Kills Everybody For Revenge category.

Answer 2

The eldest son was jealous because the youngest son had done many things wrong, and the father still rejoiced when he came home. They had a feast and they had not done so for all the good deeds that the eldest son did, but as we know God does not rely on good deeds. This parable is an example of even when we stray away from God or sin he will always forgive us.