Electra

Electra (Sophocles) The blocking and emotion of a scene can completely change the audience’s response or even how they perceive the character as a person. This means that how an actor voices a line or a scene can make an incredible difference. It could mean the difference of the audience hating or loving a character, or a death having meaning or not. The impact a certain character makes can make or break a play. The emotion behind a scene can bring up or answer questions about a character and the motivation behind an action or event that they carry out. The importance of staging and its ability to answer character questions is demonstrated by the Electra plays. For example, the character Chrysothemis from Electra by Sophocles is an extremely interesting character in that not much is…

have the body removed from the home (Faulkner 2). Although, the townspeople did not describe her at that point as being crazy, they said she “broke down” (had a psychotic occurrence in which she retreated from reality), and that she had “to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (Faulkner 2). Immediately following her father’s death, Emily recoiled into her childhood by cutting her hair short and isolating herself in the house like an abandoned orphan (Faulkner 3). At this point…

A crime buried without justice is never fully laid to rest. Imagine having a family member of yours or a dear friend murdered, retaliating would be the first thought on your mind. As the expression goes, an eye for an eye. However, the quench for revenge could lead to irreversible mistakes without any just cause. In the case of Orestes and his sister Electra, they are determined to slay their mother, Clytemnestra, for the murder of their father, Agamemnon. Will the death of their mother bring…

My client Orestes, son of the late king Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, is on trial for the murder of his mother. Athenians of the jury, you have heard testimony today that has painted my client as a ruthless murderer who has sunk so low as to have killed his own family. I implore to look past the duplicitous rhetoric of the prosecution and understand that this is not an issue of murder, but rather justice. Orestes may have very well killed his mother, but we must stop and think about why a son, who…

Orestes to murder his mother; “The woman you call the mother of the child is not the parent, just a nurse to the seed, the new-sown seed that grows and swells inside her. The man is the source of life - the one who mounts. She, like a stranger for a stranger, keeps the shoot alive unless god hurts the roots. I give you proof that all I say is true. The father can father forth without a mother. Here she stands, our living witness.” (Aeschylus 260-261) Apollo debates that the mother is not the…

The Anonymous Years (Enters Orestes into the main living area) The Chorus Orestes, we have brought news from Argos. Your mother has betrayed your father and his kingdom. Your father has endured a gruesome death. The Kingdom of Argos is now laying at rest alongside your father. We no longer have a reason to thrive. Unless, the justice that your mother deserves is carried out upon her and her lover, Aegisthus. Orestes The news from Argos, but how could this be? My mother has murdered my father.…

In Sophocles Electra one might find many different aspects of human experience, mainly because there are many different things at play. Love, lust, betrayal, fidelity, hope, morality and finally the experience which stands out most Revenge. Ah yes revenge, a very powerful human experience that controls and over comes many of the main characters that are found in the texts we read. Not only do we find this in the texts we read but also in our everyday life, everyday people, politician or…

The ending of Sophocles' Electra is perhaps one of the most interesting endings of the Greek tragic plays, as it is incredibly dramatic yet at the same time somewhat anticlimactic. The play ends fittingly dramatically with murder, although it never actually occurs on stage; thus, the anticlimax. Although Electra is a Greek tragedy, it does not end in utterly tragic circumstance, nor does it finish in a blaze of glory. The ending is generally interpreted in one of two ways; 'light' or 'dark',…

In Euripides’ play, Heracles, and in Sophocles’ play, Electra, there is constant interference from gods into human lives. By having both an understanding and a basic background of the timer period and location in Greece are key in understanding why the gods interfered with mortal lives the way they did. The divine intervention in both stories can be compared and similarities can be drawn from both. The exploitation of the deus ex machina demonstrated by Apollo in Electra and Hera in Heracles,…

“Oh, dear diary, I met a boy. He made my dull heart light up with joy. Oh dear diary, we fell apart. Welcome to the life of Electra Heart” (Marina and the Diamonds). A diary full of love and heartbreak is the classic teenage hobby many girls pick up. A fluffy pink heart and glitter tears bleed through a girls’ teenage years. This lyric is part of Marina and the Diamond’s iconic album, Electra Heart. Electra Heart describes the hearts of teenagers and how they pulse as fast as electricity when it…