Resumo de Electra - Euripides

Electra?s story being one of the foundational myths of
Athens. Electra first appeared on stage in the 4th century
B.C. and was told and retold in three distinct ways by
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Euripides? version
served as the starting point for this project primarily
because of his interest in the position of the
traditionally powerless (foreigners, women, defeated
enemies of the state). The voice he gives to his
characters resounds to contemporary audiences as very
compelling.

While previous versions took place in Clytemnestra?s
palace, Euripides displaces Electra to the country, marries
her off to a peasant farmer, and isolates her from her
family and former friends. More importantly, Euripides?
Electra holds the knife with her brother Orestes that kills
their mother; in previous versions Electra is complicit in
planning her mother?s death, but it is Euripides who
physically places the knife in her hands. This is not an
easy transition though, and the struggle in Electra between
a desire for justice and the desire for vengeance is played
out to great dramatic effect.

The action begins at the Peasant?s farm where Electra now
lives. Electra is returning to the house after getting the
water from the well. Her husband tells her that she doesn?t
have to do such work, but Electra, out of kindness for the
Peasant, helps him with his labor. Orestes, who has
returned in disguise with Pylades, his friend, to revenge
his father?s death, soon finds his sister Electra who has
longed for his return.

As they plot the death of their mother, Clytaemnestra, they
find a way to lure her to the peasant?s household by giving
her news that Electra has recently given birth to a child
and asks her mother to come and pay homage to the gods as
necessary in the birth ritual. Clytaemnestra comes and the
brother and sister kill her together.

Electra is torn between her love for her dead father and
her need to have maternal and societal support. Electra
speaks not only of her own condition but also of the world
around her. In large part, Electra is so compelling because
she deals with many of the same issues that we face in
contemporary society (just check out the Jerry Springer
Show) and struggles herself to try to find meaning in
society as it crumbles around her.

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