Who is the just person in Sophocles’ tragedy Electra?
The wife who kills her husband who had originally killed their daughter?
The son who kills his mother who had originally killed her husband?
Ahh. Tragedies. The impossible situation. The damned if you do, damned if you don’t series of events dictated by fate. How will the characters respond? How would you respond?
Electra takes us into the story of Aeschylus’ Oresteia and takes The Eumenides from the vantage point of Electra, Orestes’ sister. What is she thinking having lived under her murderous mother for 10 years? Will her hope for Orestes’ vengeance save her?
This tragedy covers themes like justice, freedom, and fate. The play culminates in the question of “whose justice?” Who has the right to exact justice? And who is in the right in exacting justice? Does justice exist beyond one’s individual conception or is there a higher law?
In this podcast episode, I consider these questions and talk about some of the other themes found in this incredible tragedy.
Electra by Sophocles