Relectura para tenerla fresca. Eurípides no decepciona

"هر زنی در دوری از شویش پروای زیبایی خود داشته باشد از جمله بدکاران به شمار می‌رود. چنین زنی نیاز نیست چهره‌ش را گلگون کند مگر اینکه به دنبال پلیدی باشد" از الکترا تو دوران معاصر یه خانم جلسه‌ای خوب در میومد. :)))))

Far from my favorite Euripides. I feel like this play can't decide if it wants to be a comedy or a tragedy, with Electra, bristling with vengeful energy, existing right next to the comically wimpy portrayal of Orestes that Euripides gives us. This doesn't seem to be done in a way that's compelling, as a tragicomedy is, but just seems inept to me. There are also a number of choral interludes that narrate a bunch of history, including the entire Trojan War, that seems superfluous. A small blunder in Euripides's otherwise brilliant oeuvre.

بیشتر از خود نمایشنامه تفسیر های آخر نشر بیدگل رو دوست دارم:»

I really enjoyed Medea, she's one of my favorite heroines ever; Vindictive, unapologetic, clever and passionate but not wise, very feminine but darkly so, she's the force of animus that destroys Jason, a temptress and a witch who goes to the ultimate extreme and murders her own children to get back at an unfaithful husband. That is to say: not your typical run of the mill woman. She's so dangerous and scary that ultimately she seems supernatural to me (she IS a witch) and although I understand her feelings I can't identify with her but merely gape at her in awe and be stupified. I adore her but she's not quite so down to earth as to be human - she does fly away on a dragon chariot of some sort at the end of the play, so dramatic -
Then there is Electra; The Mother-Killer. Sounds quite as horrendous and thank all the gods Euripides doesn't feel compelled to sugar coat any of the grisly details.
I started reading this in hopes of getting to experience something akin to Medea. But in Electra I found none. She is ridiculously akin to a teenager (which she is); prone to mood swings, self inflicting harm for attention and playing the victim (which she more or less is) and despite wanting to appear miserable and pitiable she is suffering quite no more than a loss of wealth and status. I did find someone I root for however: Clytemnestra. She's the more human rendition of Medea, less viscious, less showy, more capable of reason and remorse. She did what her impulse drove her to do but she understands her actions and its consequences and is now living with it and trying to make things work. quite frankly I don't blame her for murdering Agamemnon. It's interesting the machinations of classical Greek society and the involvement of the gods in the deciding of things. Euripides treats the subject matter of revenge and justice in a way that reveals the complications and the misleading nature of such system and puts the blame on the gods - Here Apollo - for giving unwise commands and for being untrustworthy. In the end is justice really served after Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are tricked and butchered? Euripides takes precious time to establish that both of them, though traitors and murderers are not 'villains' and even provokes the reader to sympathize with Clytemnestra. This is in contrast with Electra's character who doesn't wish to account for the mutual guilt her parents share and has an absolutist approach, expecting her mother to have remained bound by her failed marriage and pointing out undeserved accusations to her mother, a behavior that I can't help but believe stems from her dissatisfaction with her own fall from grace and resulting resentment rather than absolute support of her father.
It's a very interesting book and Euripides is becoming one of my favorite playwrights. He employs parody, sarcasm, pokes subtle fun at different literary traditions and take a a stance that is both clever and unconventional.

It makes so much sense reading this that Aeschylus wrote a trilogy with the chaos involving Agamemnon and Orestes because this section of the story, even though its a stand-alone by Euripides, really gives off the innate in-between-ness of a trilogy you’d read at any time in history lol

Η Ηλέκτρα αποτελεί μια από τις πιο γνωστές τραγωδίες του Ευριπίδη και διδάχθηκε το 413 π.Χ.
Όπως φαίνεται και από τον τίτλο, δίνεται έμφαση στον ιδιαίτερο ρόλο που διαδραματίζει η Ηλέκτρα, η οποία παριστάνει την σύζυγο κάποιου Μυκηναίου και στην συνέχεια με την άφιξη του εξορισμένου αδερφού της, Ορέστη, εκδικούνται την Κλυταιμνήστρα και τον Αίγισθο.
"Σχέτλια μεν έπαθες, ανόσια δ’ ειργάσω."

حالا سوای بحث اصلی الکترا، یکم فرعی‌تر بخوام بنویسم.. مترجم نوشته بود که این نمایشنامه در سطح روانشناسانه نشان می‌دهد که ما می‌توانیم خود را در سوگواری‌مان غرق کنیم و خود را به زندگی ماننده به مرگ با چسبیدن به گذشته محکوم نماییم.
و خب اینو واقعا خوب نشون می‌ده و واقعا چرا آدمی باید غرق در غم گذشته بمونه و مرگ‌وار زنده بمونه؟ بده بره.
[

”– and ’Electra the wretched’ is the name my countrymen call me. Ah, what miserable suffering I endure, how loathsome is my life!”

Electra follows, as one might deduce, Electra, the daughter of Clytaimnestra, who killed her husband (and Electra's father) Agamemnon years ago. Now, Electra has been given in marriage to a lowly farmer to degrade her and make sure her children will not threaten Clytaimnestra's new husband's reign. One day, though, Electra's exiled brother, Orestes, arrives, and the two begin plotting their mother and stepfather's murders in order to avenge their dead father.

I've read many versions of the myth surrounding Clytaimnestra, Orestes and Electra, but I'm still always excited to read new takes on the story and see the different ways it has been interpreted and written. For example, I had never read a version of this story where Electra had been married off to a Farmer (who, by the way, was very lovely and I liked him a lot), and in this version Electra also played a much more active role in her mother's death. These little differences between versions keep me from getting tired of reading the same myth over and over again: it's never really the same myth, after all.

I liked how in this play Electra takes the center stage. She is an interesting woman and one of my favorite female characters of greek mythology, and I loved reading about her thoughts on her messed up family history, the loss of her father, her murderous mother and her beloved brother whom she has not seen in years. She is angry and capable of great violence, but she also has a soft, loving side, which comes out especially beautifully in her relationship with her brother, Orestes. Orestes is another favorite of mine, and I liked him once again. His complex emotions for his mother and for what he has to do is always fascinating and quite heartbreaking. Clytaimnestra is a formidable, fascinating woman, and though this was not my favorite version of her (she is still at her best in Aeschylus's play Agamemnon), she was still interestingly written.

One of my favourite aspects of this play was the sequence between Electra and Clytaimnestra. No other version I've read has included such a long and deep conversation between the pair. In that scene you get to see how unlike each other they are and how drastically different their views on what has happened to their family in the past few years are. It was also fascinating to read that scene and realise that though I love Electra and felt for her throughout this play, in that moment I felt for Clytaimnestra as well, despite Electra's fury at her. This is not to say that Clytaimnestra didn't do some messed up shit, but let's face it, Agamemnon kinda had it coming after what he did to Iphigenia. I loved that moment between mother and daughter a whole lot.

I'd happily recommend this play! Euripides has not failed me yet: this play was, as all the others I've read by him have been, an interesting and enjoyable, and occasionally rather intense, story about messy complex people and moral dilemmas.

Potatoes. Potatoes.
Today I bought potatoes.
A ten-pound bag,
A gift inside,
The label said with purchase.
I purchased them for the
Gift inside. The gift inside was a
Play-a tragic play- written by
E U Ripi D's.

Electra whines.
Orestes declines.
But anyway, the siblings do sly
Their mother, her lover.
Then, Lo, an angel said,
"O, dear, O' my, but what
A shame that you did right
But, it's wrong."

A tragedy. A tragedy.
What is that?
It is a comic play with a Happy Ending.
(And w/ fries on the side.)
To a muted mask Electra went brided
To a place (now in Turkey) Orestes went
To build a town- that shed his name.

Happy Ending-w/fries on the side.

Bar the difficult-to-read misogyny, this is great play.

damn, electra had some deeply ingrained internalised misogyny going on.