Questions and topics:

1. What is the point of the change in locale and in Electra's marital status?

2. Look for heroic or noble action in this play? What do you think of Orestes' speech about nobility?

--What character or characters seem most noble or decent?

--Is there a point in elevating ordinary virtue (as in the person of the Argive farmer at the expense of the heroics of the children of Agamemnon?

3. What is the motivation of the avengers/culprits/heroes? Compare the motives of this Orestes with the list Aeschylus' Orestes gives in the Libation Bearers.

4. Note the various contrasts/opposites.

5. Follow the assumptions characters make about one another:

• -Orestes' first assumption about Electra when he sees her
• -Electra's vision of the brother who will come to save her
• -assumptions about how Aegisthus will receive Orestes and how Clytemnestra will react to Electra's false news
• Are any of these assumptions correct? What do the correct assumptions tell us about the character of Electra? Does she assume that her enemies have certain traditional virtues which she can then use against them and which she herself lacks or suppresses?

6. Why does Orestes remain unrevealed for so long? When does his plan take shape? A recognition is common to all the plays about Orestes and Electra: compare the three recognitions and think about why the changes were made.

7. Examine carefully Electra's speech at lines 304ff. Is justice the cause of her thirst for vengeance?

8. What is the point of the mockery of Aeschylus' recognition scene? How exactly is Orestes finally recognized? What does the recognition mean to him?

9. What do you think of Orestes' weakness or lack of strong characterization? What action does he take on his own initiative? Why will Orestes be punished by the Furies and Electra not be punished?

10. Find examples of sympathy for the unlikely pair, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. Find examples of likeness of murderers and victims.

11. What part does the tomb of Agamemnon play in this version of the story?

12. Does Apollo have as much prominence in this version as in the others?

13. Find and explain the numerous examples to everyday things (food, drink, clothing, shelter): why are such non-heroic things given such prominence?

14. Study the role of the chorus and the thematic aptness of the choral odes. Explain any references to other myths.

15. Are these the right people for the story? How does the use of these characters change the interpretation of the legend?

16. What do you think of the dei ex machina [theoi apo mechanes]?

17. Which came first, Sophocles' or Euripides' Electra?

18. How does the change in setting reduce the emphasis on family, the family curse, and the connection of all the acts of violence?

19. What happens to Electra's hydria (water jug)?

20. Follow the theme of sacrifice in the play?

21. Compare the reports of the two murders, one through a traditional messenger-speech, the other through reenactment in the kommos.

Points for comparison in the three plays (L.B. and the two Electra plays)

• -Nature of Orestes' lies
• -Relative importance of the characters
• -Use of minor characters
• -Importance (or lack thereof) of supernatural agency
• -Importance of Agamemnon's spirit and reliance on chthonic powers
• -Apollo's oracle
• -The setting
• -Recognition scenes
• -Avenging spirits [Furies = Erinyes]
• -Motivation (justice, vengeance, spite)
• -Inherited guilt, patterns of criminality
• -Electra's pots
• -The tomb of Agamemnon