Electra

Electra mostly entails a series of debates wherein each character provides an argument justifying their actions. First, Electra and her sister, Chrysothemis, debate the correct way to behave while living under Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Chrysothemis finds Electra’s grief pointless, urging her to behave rationally and to “lower the sail” in “rough waters” (452). While Chrysothemis agrees that they suffer at the hands of Clytemnestra, she does not believe in acting rashly or complaining when one cannot change their situation. Electra realizes that her sister’s reliance on reason is a way to avoid taking responsibility for her compliance, her cowardice. She directly challenges this mindset: “Well it’s time for you to make a choice: / quit being ‘sensible’ / or keep your good sense and betray your own kin” (467-469). Electra presents helping one’s kin as incompatible with having good sense, seemingly arguing that Chrysothemis’s strong sense of reason is what is keeping her from helping her siblings. A second potential interpretation is that Clytemnestra is the kin whom Chrysothemis must betray; in order to keep her good sense, she would have to align herself with Electra.

When Electra speaks with her mother, Clytemenstra, the two debate both Clytemnestra’s justification of Agamemnon’s murder and the nature of Agamemnon’s murder of Iphigenia. Clytemnestra’s argument centers on the pain of childbirth and a mother’s claim to her child: “Did he have some share / in the pain of her birth? No— I did it myself! / Tell me: / why did he cut her throat? What was the reason?” (711-714). She believes she is owed compensation for the loss of her daughter Iphigenia. Furthermore, she believes that Agamemnon acted unethically when he sacrificed Iphigenia for his brother’s sake, as Menelaus has two older children of his own. Electra argues that justifying murder with murder is fundamentally flawed: “If we made it a rule / to answer killing with killing, / you would die first, / in all justice” (780-783). She exposes Clytemnestra’s true motives in murdering Agamemnon, which were to gain wealth and marry Aegisthus. Electra juxtaposes Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, stating that the former felt great shame for murdering his daughter while the latter felt none for murdering her husband. Like the power of speech, ethics is key to Electra, revealing characters’ true natures.