I know you aren't as interested in her as Iphigenia and Clytemnestra, but can I ask your thoughts on Electra?? :)
Oh, I have some thoughts about her!
This time, the thoughts are… probably quite messy. I say this because, for example, in the case of characters like Cassandra, Clytemnestra, Atalanta, Jason, Medea, Achilles, Patroclus, Deidamia, etc, I have read academic interpretations and theories about them so that, sometimes, when I agree with something the author said, I also included it in my way of reading the character. But I have never read anything that analyzed Electra, so you could say that she is the kind of character whose opinion about her hasn’t yet been influenced by other people's thoughts. Consequently, this opinion post may be more redundant than usual. Like, nothing unexpected. “Wow, Birdie, do you need to read other people's opinions to structure your opinion about a mythological character in a decent way?” hmmm… yeah, maybe. Skill issue, I know.
We know what Orestes and Iphigenia were like before the sacrifice because they were the characters present with the armies in the myths — either while the sacrifice was being planned in the case of both Iphigenia and Orestes, or when Telephus kidnapped Orestes in the case of Orestes. Of course, Orestes didn't have much to know because he was a baby, but Iphigenia is another case. Not only do we get to see her in the scene, but the other characters describing and mentioning her give us clues about Iphigenia pre-sacrifice, after all, these characters are precisely remembering Iphigenia before her death. For example, the Chorus describes the way Iphigenia was sacrificed in a way that lets us know she enjoyed singing while emphasizing how she couldn’t at the time because she was gagged — that is, the Chorus emphasizes a supposedly banal characteristic about Iphigenia in order to show the violent, pitiful, and even haunting aspect of her sacrifice (Aeschylus’ Agamemnon 243–247, trans. H.W. Smyth). But Electra? Electra is…not very detailed in this regard. There’s a little something here and there, like the mention of her chasing a deer (Euripides’ Electra 573–574 trans. E.P. Coleridge), but nothing very concrete.
And okay, you might be wondering why I’m bringing this up. Like, why don’t I just get to the relevant part, with the House of Atreus conflict and all that? Well, it’s just that it intrigues me. Realistically, I know that Electra, as a mythological character, even when she appears as a literary character, is very much shaped by what is useful in the myth. If the author thinks that a character’s childhood isn’t useful to the narrative, he/she won’t add it. Knowing about Iphigenia is useful because we have to visualize the person the family is mourning and the person they mourn is precisely the girl who existed before Aulis, but theoretically we don’t need to know whether Electra was a naughty girl or a well-behaved girl. Realistically, I don’t think there’s any greater motivation behind this absence of part of her life. And yet, I can’t help but wonder… the Electra we know is clearly shaped by the events after the sacrifice. Everything we know about her is motivated by her protective and hopeful feelings toward Orestes, her deep hatred for Aegisthus, her indignation at Chrysothemis’s decision, her sense of betrayal and bitterness toward Clytemnestra, her mourning for Iphigenia and Agamemnon. An Electra before all this, who was she? There was a time when Electra didn’t hate Clytemnestra and didn’t fear for Orestes’ life! And it makes me wonder how frighteningly shaped by this cycle of violence Electra is, whether she wants to be or not. On some level, Electra is constructed by violence — physical violence in the form of murder, economic violence as she lives as a slave, psychological violence in the face of the pressures imposed on her by events, and even the fear of sexual violence she probably felt when she was forced to marry (it didn't happen. She was married, but they didn't consummate).
But there is something notably bitter about this, and it’s the fact that Electra knows that she is built on desire and resistance to violence, on the aggression in her words as a way to protect herself and the memory of those she love, on feelings that numb her with resentment deep inside. This is particularly noticeable in Sophocles' play:
Electra Now be assured that I do feel shame for it, though I seem not to you. I know that my behavior is unsuited to my age and inappropriate. But then the enmity I get from you and your behavior compel me with harsh necessity to do this; for reprehensible deeds are learned from reprehensible examples.
Sophocles’ Electra, 617-622. Translation by Richard Jebb.
She knows that she isn’t built like a normal girl. Not in the arrogant “oh, I’m different from other girls” sense, but in the sad sense that Electra wanted to be like other girls. She wanted to have her family alive and united, she wanted her biggest worry in life to be being anxious at the wedding and having to be reassured by this mother and not that her biggest worry in life was the specter of her father's death at her mother's hands and the possible death of her brother at her hands as well — a concern, in some cases, that apparently was quick thought in a way that suggests prior suspicion since, depending on the version, Electra is the one who had the idea of sending Orestes away; see for example, Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Library E.6.24, Pseudo-Hyginus’ Fabulae §117. Sophocles highlights this by making her lament “yes, I await him [Orestes] with unwearied longing, as I walk my sad path from day to day childless and unwed, bathed in tears, bearing that endless doom of evils” and “I waste away without children and have no loving husband to champion me, but like some despised foreign slave, I serve in the halls of my father, wrapped in shabby garments and standing to eat scanty meals” (165-166 and 188-192, trans. Richard Jebb).
But there is something else. Electra has memories of that day when her father’s return was announced, but she never saw her father appear to greet her (which recalls her words in Sophocles’ Electra 202-212 trans. Richard Jebb). She was, however, there to mourn at his grave (Sophocles’ Electra 86-120 trans. Richard Jebb, Aeschylus’ The Libation Bearers 84-105 trans. H.W. Smyth). Ten years of waiting for a return that never came, the closest thing she has is a cold tombstone and the attempt to comfort herself with the funeral honors. He didn’t die an honorable death (something Agamemnon emphasizes in The Odyssey 11.405-434 trans. Lattimore), but that doesn’t alter the fact that Electra wants him to feel honored even though he is no longer here. And yet, what should have been an activity of comfort has also become an activity in which she stews in the hateful feelings. And even as Electra is honoring Agamemnon, she is also thinking about how Clytemnestra isn’t there, how she isn’t honoring her husband in the way that would be expected of a wife because after all she was the one who confined him to this grave. Clytemnestra is such a constant presence, even when she is absent Electra cannot help but see her face and hear her voice — Electra's nauseating feelings for her mother are so strong that they taint even the moments dedicated for her father, so that attempts at comfort are futile.
It’s as if, with Clytemnestra still there, comfort is impossible. And so Electra feels that Clytemnestra must be eliminated, she feels in her bones that she won’t have peace until the person she blames most for her pain is sent to Hades. Because Electra knows that, while her mother is there, her every thought, movement, breath will be divided between Clytemnestra and Orestes in a way that is frankly disorienting with the accumulated and tangled despair, hatred, and longing. And she goes into homicidal daydreams, thinking about how she would love for Clytemnestra to die…and yet she doesn’t kill her. Even when Electra is publicly defiant toward Clytemnestra, it doesn’t change the fact that she doesn’t kill her. Because of this, the sense of finality never really reaches her in these tortuous years. Instead, Electra has in her mind the firm hope that Orestes is the one who will avenge their father. Even when Electra knows she could do it, she still wants Orestes to be the one to do it.
But why? Well, I feel like Electra isn’t only shaped by violence, but she directly associates violence with Clytemnestra. And why wouldn’t she? She’s fatherless because her mother killed him, she has no financial stability because her mother forcibly married her off to a poor man and treats her like a slave, she has no comfort from her remaining family because Clytemnestra is there — she has no comfort from Clytemnestra because they antagonize each other, she has no comfort from Chrysothemis because she’s afraid of Clytemnestra, and she has no comfort from Orestes because he’s not even there. It makes sense that Electra would think of her mother when she thinks of violence. But if Clytemnestra is the embodiment of violence in Electra’s imagination, then Electra being constructed by violence would be the equivalent of her being constructed in a similar way to Clytemnestra. Electra may excuse her violent thoughts with the idea that they are because of her feelings for Agamemnon and Orestes, but she feels that the moment it passes from the mental plane to the physical plane then there is no going back. A thought is a thought, but a death is irreversible and she knows it all too well — Agamemnon never returned.
So if she really does kill her mother, Electra won’t be able to go back. And she will be ever closer to being like Clytemnestra, a possibility that she greatly despises because, even more maddening than her mother's constant presence in her life, is her possible constant presence in Electra’s eyes when she sees herself in a mirror. But here's the question... if killing Clytemnestra is to be like her, why is Orestes allowed to do this? I don't mean allowed in general, we know well how the Erinyes torment him to the point of madness in many sources (e.g. Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris) and how in others we have characters showing disapproval of what he did (e.g. Euripides' Orestes), but allowed by Electra. Why is Electra able to rejoice that Orestes does this and even helps him, but the idea of her doing it fills her with deep fear?
Well, I think it’s because Orestes is a man and Electra is a woman. Violence was a trait traditionally associated with men, not women. No wonder Aeschylus constantly has characters masculinize Clytemnestra for her violence and assertiveness and effeminate Aegisthus for preferring cunning and being less assertive, and they repeatedly talk about how wrong it is for a woman to be so aggressive (for example: Aeschylus’ Agamemnon 11-12 and 1625-1628, Aeschylus’ The Libation Bearers 304-305 trans. H.W. Smyth). Euripides also makes this clear when he has Electra say “I had a share in the murder, in so far as a woman could, [and Pylades, who helped us to bring it about]” (Euripides’ Orestes 32-33 trans. E.P. Coleridge). While killing one's spouse or family member would be frowned upon anyway, a woman killing a man would be doubly reprehensible (myth-wise). After all, the role of aggressor doesn’t belong to women in the traditional mind, an idea already present in Homeric texts, with the warriors in The Iliad comparing each other to women to imply that they didn’t have the ideal characteristics of a warrior, and The Odyssey emphasizing the contrast between the ideal woman Penelope and the reprehensible woman Clytemnestra. Electra, as desirous as she is of revenge, has a fear that surpasses any homicidal thought: the dread of resembling Clytemnestra. And if she is another of those women who, seeking revenge, brutally kills someone, Electra feels that she won’t be so different from the one Electra claims to despise — after all, didn't Clytemnestra also say that she wanted revenge for a loved one? This possibility disturbs her immensely, for, as she has made clear to Chrysothemis, Electra wants to be remembered as Agamemnon's daughter and not as Clytemnestra's daughter (Sophocles' Electra 341-368 trans. Richard Jebb). The problem is that she will never stop being Clytemnestra's daughter. In Aeschylus' Eumenides, in the hope of freeing Orestes from punishment, Apollo may argue that women aren’t meant to be mothers like men are meant to be fathers, and Athena may agree, but about one thing Clytemnestra was right when she saw Orestes in her final moments: that belly had given birth to him, those breasts had nourished him. They knew that, no matter what external opinions, they somehow still saw her as their mother. Isn't that why Orestes hesitated, having to be reminded by Pylades what to do? Why, deep down, did he look at Clytemnestra and want to see his mother after years of trying not to see her as such? Electra is the daughter of Agamemnon, but she is also the daughter of Clytemnestra even as she tries to distance herself from it.
Eventually, Orestes does kill Clytemnestra. And yet, this doesn’t bring the finality that Electra may have hoped it would. There is still much to be done, as is made clear by the way Orestes has yet to deal with the Erinyes. Electra didn’t consider that eliminating a person from the physical plane doesn’t mean that that person is eliminated from memory, although she should have, since the ghosts of Agamemnon and Iphigenia never left the house. Euripides extrapolates this idea in the play Orestes, since not only is Orestes unhinged (a common trait of the character in his myths dealing with post-revenge) but so is Electra (not a common trait in the surviving sources, as it is with Orestes). Even after the elimination that Electra thought would save her from the labyrinth that was her mind, she was still haunted and is still so lost without finding the way out. And honestly, considering how, after Clytemnestra's death, the narrative of the sources usually focuses on Orestes and Electra tends to be mentioned only as a daughter, sister or wife, we don't even know if she ever truly found peace. Orestes, with the support of Apollo, purified the evil from the lineage. But what then? Is that enough to heal what built her identity? And if Electra allows herself to be healed, who then is she? Does she know how to know anything else, at this point? Electra probably didn't even have the answers to that.
She wanted to be like other girls, and then she wanted to be like other women. She, however, was neither of them.