The culprit for this disconnect may be an intense generation gap. Our distant brethren, the Greeks, although "moral", assigned that morality to issues in a fundamentally different way than we do today. Of course, some traits carry over. The mother's haughtiness and frank refusal to admit her own guilt leaves an aftertaste of congealed spaghetti.
Yum.
Since we are strongly encouraged to forgive, however, it is also hard to sympathize with the bitter Electra. In fact, we almost unconsciously start to dislike the "hero", and the viewer quickly realizes that there are no truly good characters in this play, only less bad ones. Her rants and refusal to admit even the tiniest amount of merit to her mother's actions help to shape Electra into the very thing she tried, and succeeded, in destroying.
The unexpected part of the play is that everything goes right. The bad people die, Electra is reunited with the only member of her family that means anything to her, and they live happily ever after. However, the real tragedy, the kind that lies outside the borders of the traditional definition, is internal. To paraphrase Hugh Nibley, "The tragedy of [the play] is not what became of [Electra] but what [Electra became]."
It's interesting how characters can be portrayed and viewed in different ways depending on one's point of view. For example, in Victor Hugo's, Les Miserables, the character Javert seems to be the enemy--in the sense that he is working against the beloved, moral protagonist. However, looked at from a different perspective, he is striving to fulfill his own duty to God and country by trying to detain a convicted criminal. It's all about perspective.
ReplyDeleteYou could argue that Electra's love of Orestes was her redeeming quality that was supposed to help her connect with the audience. Obviously that might not work for everyone who watches it, but that may have been the intent.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alisa that it's all about perspective. In some ways, I think that it was indeed possible to connect with Electra. Her obsessive mourning was kind of annoying, but I actually found it endearing in a way--because the audience knows more about the situation than Electra herself, it lends a sense of irony to the play. You knows how sometimes we yell at fictional characters in books or movies? Such as when the individual in a horror film INEVITABLY GOES INTO THE HOUSE and you just want to tell them that you know it's a bad decision? I suppose I found a connection to Electra in that sense.
ReplyDeleteBless you for the Eminem reference. I cried.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, I do think it interesting that it Electra is considered to be a tragedy. Maybe Sophocles intended for us to see that undying loyalty is not a flaw, but a strength, as it resulted in victory instead of her downfall.
See, that's my question. Did everything really go right in the end? I daresay that Electra's response of weeping over the mother she had wanted so badly to kill is as tragic as if she'd been killed herself. Now she gets to deal with THAT for the rest of her life, and with her sense of justice and vengeance, I wouldn't at all be surprised if she decided that she deserved the same fate as her mother.
ReplyDeleteAdding on to what everyone else has said, I also think that we have to have a sense for Greek theater. Many of the characters were one sided. They weren't necessarily meant to represent a person, but rather a logical or emotional state of a person. Electra was very pathetic, swinging from one side of the emotional side to the other, while Electra's sister took a much more logical approach to the situation, while still feeling familial obligations. They are all the part of a whole.
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