Sophocles' Electra
- 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
- 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" is basically the idea
that a text does not spend the same amount of words on
each character or the same amount of 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.
- 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 before 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:
- 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
- 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.
Further reading/viewing
- Hoffmansthal opera Electra
- Richard Strauss opera Electra
- Shyamaprasad's film in Malayalam, Elektra
- Eugene O'Neill's Mourning becomes Electra