Electra is one tough cookie. She's spent all of her adult life being abused by the one person who's supposed to love her unconditionally (her mother), and yet she doesn't once waver in her staunch...
We can ask of Orestes the same basic question we asked of Electra: why does he want to kill the royal couple? Unlike his sister, Orestes is driven in large part by the command of the god, Apollo. I...
Does Clytemnestra deserve to die? That would seem to be the big question when it comes to dealing with the Queen's character. On the one hand, Clytemnestra did cheat on and then murder her husband...
If Electra is emotion or duty-driven, Chrysothemis is reason-driven. It's not that she's immoral for taking the side of her father's murderers. Rather, she's too pragmatic to commit herself to what...
As we discuss in "Character Roles," the old man functions primarily as a guide for Orestes. The main guidance seems to be: "Stop standing around and talking and get to action already!" This is what...
As we discuss in "Tone," the Chorus plays a large part in establishing the tone of the play. In many ways, this group of women guides the audience as to how to react to the action on stage. In this...
We don't see much of King Aegisthus until Orestes is about to kill him at the end of the play. He's set up as a villain in that he opposes our protagonist, Electra, and his impending death function...
