Electra

Extract

In the Aeschylean version of the material with which Sophocles is dealing in his Electra, there appear a few important characteristics the awareness of which lends perspective to the Sophoclean tragedy.

For the purpose of this study, we only need to concern ourselves with the second part of the Aechylean trilogy, the Oresteia, namely the Choephoroe. The first part deals with the antecedents of the events. Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek forces, who sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, in order to appease the goddess Artemis and to regain divine favor for the storm-bound fleet at Aulis, returns, after Troy's destruction, victoriously to his land of Argos where Clytemnestra, his wife, has been nurturing her hatred of him because of his consent to Iphigenia's death. She has joined forces with Aegisthus, who, for savage cruelties committed against his family, is also burning with a desire for revenge on Agamemnon. Aegisthus not only becomes Clytemnestra's ally, but dishonors Agamemnon at the same time.