An Overview of Euripides’ Electra :: Euripides Electra Essays

An Overview of Electra   Euripides play Electra, produced in 415 b.c.e., starts with a peasant recounting past events Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus murdered Agamemnon and took the throne of Mycenae. Agamemnons son Orestes escaped and has been raised in Phocis. Daughter Electra, when marriageable, was forced to wed this peasant instead of any noble, whereby Aegisthus rule might be endangered. The marriage has not been consummated. If any man thinks me a fool, for harbouring / A young girl in my house and never touching her, / He measures whats right by the wretched standard of / His own mind (107).   Electra doesnt mind work so long as she can grouse about her mother. Orestes and his friend Pylades arrive. Orestes has been sent by Apollos oracle to avenge his fathers murder. He and Electra, who doesnt recognize him, exchange stories, Electra bring out that Aegisthus when hes drunk, so people say, / Jumps on the grave, or flings stones at my fathers name / Inscribed there (116) and acts paranoid about Orestes. With the help of an old one-time servant to Agamemnon and a satisfied scar, Orestes identity is revealed to Electra. The siblings conspire.   Orestes pretends to join Aegisthus in an animal sacrifice but murders the usurper and wins over the kings guards to his side. He parades the severed head to Electra, who is elated but not sated. Orestes balks at the idea of killing Clytemnestra, their mother. Electra sends word that she has given birth. Clytemnestra visits and does a rather convincing job of explaining her side to all the famous events, particularly her wrath at Agamemnon for tricking their girl Iphigenia to her sacrificial death before the Trojan War. She was also less than pleased that Agamemnon brought back Cassandra as his new slave toy. The Chorus is characteristically idiotic Your wrangling are just yet in your justice there remains / Something repellent. A wife ought in all things to accept / Her husbands judgement, i f she is wise. Those who will not / Admit this, choke outside my scope of argument (141). Electra aligns Clytemnestra with her sister Helen. She accuses her mother of primping before the mirror long before Agamemnons crimes, obviously for someone else. And Electra claims Clytemnestras rationalizations do not contend the persecution of Orestes and herself. Clytemnestra accepts that Electra favors her father, but as to this business of the new baby?