▪︎ خوندن یه فانتزی ۷۷۷ صفحه‌ای به خدا که برای من آسون تر از خوندن نمایش‌نامه کلاسیک ۷۷ صفحه‌ایه!

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.
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The Greeks really had a tendency of repeating themselves, didn't they? Often times , many plays by these ancient dramatists basically tell the same story, it's all just a matter of whose writing the reader/watcher prefers more. In the case of Electra, there are essentially two tellings of the exact same story, one by Euripides and one by Sophocles. I have already reviewed the Sophocles version, so I suppose I will do a review of this one as well.

I feel that there isn't really a need to go into that detailed of a plto summary- Electra, who is living with her cheating, murderous mother, is miserable because she is in mourning for her father. She meets up with Orestes and Pylades, who then kill the mother and her lover.

If one is familiar with Greek drama, then they will most certainly know that this story is told many, many times. The story of Orestes and Electra obviously must have been a very popular one, because all of these plays were performed publicly; many people must have wanted to see this story arc. I would even go to say that this particular story is just as popular and frequent in these plays as the Oedipus story arc is.

Now, can I say that I eventually get tired of hearing the same story over and over again? Frankly, yes. However, that does not diminish the quality of Electra- Euripides still reads pretty well. It's jsut that by this point, I have read about Orestes and Electra many times and am certainly all too familiar with the story. It's strarting to seem a little cliche to me!

This one is a cracker that romps along swiftly to its bloody climax. Loved Euripides making fun of Aeschylus's version of how Electra and Orestes recognised each other in The Libation Bearers.

It’s a beautiful tragedy, and there’s a rich complexity and unease that makes Euripides’ version so rich. I love the ethical nuances and gray areas which touch the measure-for-measure matricide and patricide that brother and sister unite to wreak. It feels much more of a brother-sister Union.

Electra often speaks very ancient-Greek sentiments about women and how they should be subject to men. Clytemnestra’s objections are valid enough, and Iphigenia’s death was a grievous thing, and the Trojan War may not have been worth it all.

Both have considerable claims.

Euripides really puts these two against each other wonderfully.

I think I might prefer it to Sophocles’ Electra (which is also a great tragedy)

I've been going through The Oresteia: Agamemnon, Women at the Graveside, Orestes in Athens, An Oresteia, and other facets of the story. Now, last, I've gotten to Euripides version. In many ways this was my favorite version. I loved how Orestes was reluctant to kill his mother and Electra pushed him into it. I loved how compelling the argument was from Clytemnestra for sparing her life (more compelling than the emotional appeal of displaying her breast in Aeschylus's version) and how Euripides more effectively shifts perspectives and sympathies than other versions do. I loved the sly ways in Euripides made fun of the previous versions, like the idea that Orestes footprints or hair would be recognizable decades later, something that felt dramatic and exciting when I first read it but is obviously preposterous. And perhaps best was the way in which Apollo seems to be wrong in his command to Orestes to kill his mother and Orestes realizes it, pushes back, but does it anyway. All around, this play felt fresh, alive and exciting to me.

My girl gaslit, gatekept, and girlbossed the entire way through.

I remember liking this one a lot, much more than the Electra of Sophocles, back when I first read it maybe five or six years ago. I thought it had cooler lyrics, and a better atmosphere.

That impression holds up re-reading it now, although side by side with his Orestes it seems the tamer work. I do like the choice of the county cabin as the setting (picture a charred, smoky sky lighting up the pastures) and the lyrics hold up. I think too much is made of Electra's supposed hysteria (critics are always trying to show Euripides for his mysoginy but I think they get it way wrong).

It was written in 420, while Orestes was in 408, four years before the Pelopponesian War would end. It seems that by 408 Euripides was much more disillusioned than before, as none of the reconciliation here finds its way into the latter play.

Fav quote:
"Phoebus, you hymed the law in black melody / but the deed has shone white as a scar."

Clytemnestra: Oh, women are fools for sex, deny it I shall not.
Since this is in our nature, when our husbands choose
to despise the bed they have, a woman is quite willing
to imitate her man and find another friend.
But then the dirty gossip puts us in the spotlight;
the guilty ones, the men, are never blamed at all.
If Menelaus had been raped from home on the sly,
should I have had to kill Orestes so my sister's
husband could be rescued? You think your father would
have borne it? He would have killed me. Then why was it fair
for him to kill what belonged to me and not be killed?
I killed. I turned and walked the only path still open,
straight to his enemies. Would any of his friends
have helped me in the task of murder I had to do?

Given the variety of dramatic treatments the story of Orestes killing his mother receives, Euripides's Electra is the most visceral. Electra and Orestes coordinate their efforts for justice for their father Agamemnon, who was struck down by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Orestes kills Aegisthus while Aegisthus is at an altar sacrificing a bull for the gods. Clytemnestra is killed in the very act of entering her daughter's house to perform prayers for the birth of a son. As an audience, we hear Clytemnestra's reaction after entering the house, her horror at finding her children ambushing her. We hear her harrowing pleas.

Clytemnestra and Helen are sisters, of course. Helen, whether she absconded with or was abducted by Paris, is the reason Clytemnestra loses her daughter Iphigeneia. Her justification for her subsequent actions, though dismissed by her children, is convincing. She argues there is a double-standard at work: besides herself, no one sought vengeance for Iphigeneia because Iphigeneia is a girl; on the other hand, Electra and Orestes seek vengeance for Iphigeneia's murderer, Agamemnon, because he is a father and a man. Her feminist argument, however, is dismantled by Electra, who believes Clytemnestra had begun betraying her husband long before the Iphigeneia incident. It's food for thought both ways. The ending weakens the work, by having a divine apparition (related to Clytemnestra at that) proclaim how Orestes' murder trail will have a long-lasting impact on legal verdicts.

Still, this is a good play. The characters are more real, their emotions and thoughts more realistic. A good afternoon read and a good work to compare to the others dramatizing the same story.

Well, first of all, let me introduce myself to you as a reader: I'm all for tears, hair pulling, family issues and some long due retribution. I crave for dramatic situations, plot twists and happy (though) unexpected endings.

In this play, Elektra is an outcast, banished from the Palace she belongs to after her mother, Clitemnestra, has schemed to have her father Agamemnon (Troy's anti hero) murdered by her lover Egystus. So they take the 'realm' and have Elektra married to a peasent, who is too humble and kind to claim her as his wife, so basically he only hosts her in his cabin, giving her shelter and maintenance; Elektra's brother, Orestes,still hasn't returned from the war and the first scene is composed by Elektra's longing for Orestes to come back and avenge their treacherously deceived father.

There is one catch, though: in case Orestes does so, he will be persued by the Wraths, three creatures who punish bloodline crimes, and is vely likely to be driven insane. Now don't dare to ask me "Why doesn't Elektra take the matter into her own hands and poisens Clitemnestra or urges her people to recover her palace?" because, as we all know, women were nothing but strategical possessions for powerful men.

I do recommend it to all you soap opera lovers as to see how far the Mexican sources come from!

din seria "de ce n-am citit asta la timp"

A beautiful tragedy by the great ancient Greek playwright Euripides! The play is centered on revenge and justice, where the children of Clytemnestra, Electra and her brother Orestes avenge the murder of their own father by the hands of his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegistus at the end of the play. What I liked in Euripides’ version of the play is its somehow realistic form as well as the depiction of the deep psychological aspects and conflicts of the characters, shown, for instance, in the characters’ motivations. For example, we see that Orestes is hesitant to kill his mother when the time arrives, partly because he does not want to commit a matricide, but more driven by his sense of filial duties toward the mother who brought him. Electra tries to show her mother that the real motive behind her husband’s murder was not because the latter killed their daughter, but because she already had had feelings toward Aegistus. On the other hand, the events take place in the peasant’s house, not in the palace (like in Aeschylus and Sophocles versions). I also liked to see the mother willing to help her pregnant daughter with her first baby, which shows that even if she knew that her daughter hated her, still she had motherly feelings toward her daughter – That was not the case with the other plays. One aspect the play seems to shed lights on was the gender role as imposed by the patriarchal culture of the time. The language is beautiful and the play attracts one’s attention from the very first page.