sophoclesElectra

Sophocles' Electra

Storyline from Wikipedia (it seems accurate to me, and I need you all to know the plotline for the rest to make sense);

Set in the city of Mycenae a few years after the Trojan War, the play tells of a bitter struggle for justice by Electra and her brother Orestes for the murder of their father Agamemnon by Clytemnestra and their stepfather Aegisthus.
When King Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War, his wife Clytemnestra (who has taken Agamemnon's cousin Aegisthus as a lover) kills him. Clytemnestra believes the murder was justified since Agamemnon had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia before the war, as commanded by the gods. Electra, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, rescued her younger brother Orestes from her mother by sending him to Strophius of Phocis. The play begins years later when Orestes has returned as a grown man with a plot for revenge, as well as to claim the throne.

Orestes arrives with his friend Pylades, son of Strophius, and a pedagogue, i.e. tutor (an old attendant of Orestes, who took him from Electra to Strophius). They plan to have the tutor announce that Orestes has died in a chariot race and that two men (really Orestes and Pylades) are arriving shortly to deliver an urn with his remains. Meanwhile, Electra continues to mourn the death of her father Agamemnon, holding her mother Clytemnestra responsible for his murder. When Electra is told of the death of Orestes her grief is doubled, but this grief is to be short-lived.

After a choral ode, Orestes arrives carrying the urn supposedly containing his ashes. He does not recognize Electra, nor does she recognize him. He gives her the urn and she delivers a moving lament over it, unaware that her brother is, in fact, standing alive next to her. Now realizing the truth, Orestes reveals his identity to his emotional sister. She is overjoyed that he is alive, but in their excitement, they nearly reveal his identity, and the tutor comes out from the palace to urge them on. Orestes and Pylades enter the house and slay Clytemnestra. As Aegisthus returns home, they quickly put her corpse under a sheet and present it to him as the body of Orestes. He lifts the veil to discover who it really is, and Orestes then reveals himself. They escort Aegisthus offset to be killed at the hearth, the same location where Agamemnon was slain. The play ends here before the death of Aegisthus is announced.
End of Wikipedia storyline.

Literary predecessors and related matters

Homer: Aegisthus killed Agamemnon in Homer in most relevant passages.
Epic Cycle: story also found in what's left of the Nostoi
Aeschylus Oresteia 458 BCE
Euripides' Electra 410-413 BCE, probably.
Sophocles' Electra: date not known with certainty: scholars suspect it was written between 410 and 401 BCE.

Deception and testing loom large in this tragedy:

Several deceptive speeches: Orestes and Electra to Clytaemnestra
The whole play's plot is the enacting of a plot to kill Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus by using deception
But also Orestes seems to continue his deception with Electra for longer than necessary.

compare Odysseus and Penelope, or the the swineherd Eumaeus or Alkinoos the Phaeacian king or Athena (when he lands on Ithaca) or even Menelaus with Proteus.

the messenger speech where the pedagogue relates the death of Orestes in the chariot race

a large deception
note that it is not simply a way to avoid violence on stage
it allows the introduction of large actions that don't fit the conventions of stage theater: a chariot race
but it also is a way to focalize: the messenger uses a 3rd person viewpoint that is not pure 3rd person.

Aside about "focalization": 'focalization' is basically the idea that a text does not spend the same amount of words on each character AND ALSO that the text does not the same amount of time/words on each minute of action as it would "actually" occur
rather, one character can become the focus: her thoughts and actions get lots of attention
or one moment can become the focus: a play might take place in a day, but 30 minutes of that day may take up half the play: that focuses time.
another factor that plays in is point of view: there may be several characters with very different points of view, but one character's point of view may take 70% of the words.
That focusing is called focalization:

I think of it as similar to filmed events: if the camera were simply placed back far enough to cover all the action and never moved or changed, that would be flat focalization.
but multiple cameras and multiple lenses are used in most films: and some characters get personal flashbacks, closeups, and monologues: all of those sorts of things focalize.

Focalization on Electra:

In a way, the whole play is all about Electra, who longs to (help) kill her mother, but that is not morally problematized

Is she 'greatheartedly' 'amoral'?
Is she morally damaged by focus on revenge?
Why does the chorus support her throughout if she's immoral/amoral?
She hates deeply, and loves deeply
Her friends have become enemies, and so she cannot apply the popular morality "help friends, harm enemies"

cf. Clytemnestra, who both loves and fears/hates her son Orestes

Sophocles seems to deliver no verdict about Electra: at least it's not easy to see how we think the playwright has presented her in terms of good/bad, moral/immoral/amoral, loving/hating

Other characters have no major role

Chrysothemis is a foil to Electra: a sister who does not focus on grief and pain, who gets over it
Orestes does his part, the killing
the tutor has a fantastic messenger speech
Clytemnestra fills her role, but is not developed greatly
Pylades is a friend

The chorus is good, longs for justice, don't get involved much with the state, support Electra (but think she indulges her emotions overly)

They have a large role, but do not emerge as a strong force one way or another
They leave the focus on Electra

Sisters and family

Electra represents loyalty to father and unwillingness to bend

cf. Ajax: is Electra also a tragedy of stubbornness?)

Electra has just asked Chrysothemis to help her kill Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus. Electra then says:

Electra: Do you not think that I speak with justice"

Chrysothemis: Sometimes justice itself is fraught with harm.

Electra: I do not care to live by such a law.

Compare Antigone: another sister reacting to family drama and powers-that-be.

Chrysothemis represents prudence (practicality: how to survive in a world in which your mother and her new partner killed your father and they are now ruling)

But Electra suggests that Chrysothemis likes the luxury she lives in, and that's her motive.
Compare Antigone's sister Ismene

Iphianassa is mentioned as living, but she doesn't play any role
Iphigeneia is the reason why Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon (Cassandra doesn't figure in here, apparently): from Clytaemnestra's view, it was justice.

The chorus says Clytaemnestra killed for lust, however.

Electra's experience is clearly the focus of the play.
Recognition delayed until very late.
Orestes is successful, then the play ends.
It is suggested that that is the end of the cycle of violence.
Apollo is not blamed, although Orestes clearly has his approval: and Orestes suggests after the killing that Apollo's oracle said everything would be fine.
Orestes kills by using intrigue and deception.
What does all that mean? What are we to make of all that?
How does that compare to other tragedy?

While there is success in Ajax, for instance, it is success at suicide, and the play doesn't end there.
In Aeschylus, Orestes is pursued by furies: it's not an unmitigated success.

Possible approaches: note that all of these approaches assume that we can figure out Sophocles' view, a big assumption that is itself worth questioning: Sophocles never speaks in his own voice in the play.

1. Sophocles could care less about the legality or morality of the action of the play

He is producing a drama that is above all a drama
He is interested in the intrigue, the recognition, the epic chariot race, the compelling story
It's all about how to, not whether to.
He shows the emotions, each character following a path with a guiding principle (be it vengeance and loyalty for a father, vengeance for a daughter, prudence in a horrible situation, vengeance for long gone relatives and acquiring the power one's family used to have) rather than making any moral or other commentary on the situation.

2. Same as 1, but rather than say that Sophocles could care less, say that he is leaving it up to the reader. He is trying to present all, or at least many, viewpoints. Dramatizing the problem without solving it or suggesting an opinion.
3. Sophocles fully approves of the matricide

the killings were justified
Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus had committed capital wrongs
Orestes doesn't hesitate before killing his mother because he is right to do so
the furies play no role because there is no wrong done by Orestes
Apollo approves of it all

4. Sheppard, in an article long ago, suggested a subtle reading that amounts to, among others, the claim that Sophocles wants to question the idea that matricide can be right, dependent on two lines:

when Orestes asked Apollo "How should I wreak vengeance," Orestes asked a loaded question that assumed that he should wreak vengeance and Apollo answered in kind (oracles are notoriously tricky) rather than correct him in any way.

when Orestes emerges with dripping sword, he says to Electra "Things are good, if Apollo's oracle was good." thereby leaving open the idea that it might not have been good.
Kells thinks Sheppard was right: the whole play is put into question by these two lines: it is an "ironic" reading that finds a strong tension between the assumptions made in those lines and the act of matricide. Kells adds more lines to support this idea:
Orestes shows chinks in his moral armor: he says "nothing that you say, as long as it brings advantage, is objectionable" (line 60 or so).

that line is clearly immoral
(but would it be frowned upon: cf. Odysseus in Philoctetes)

note too that Clytaemnestra is torn when she hears of Orestes' death: she wants to call it good news, but she also feels that it is terrible (760-780 or so)
basically, this reading requires us to notice loose threads, things said ONCE and BRIEFLY, and use them to interpret the hundreds of other lines.

My view: it is A supported and therefore good reading, but not necessarily THE correct reading: it is possible for a work, particularly a dramatic work, to clearly support more than one reading.