Aeschylus versus Sophocles, the broad view: the idea of the hero, the interest in "Theodicy" in Aeschylus
 

• Theodicy = "justice at the hands of the gods": in the Aeschylean vision, the interest is in how our concept of divinity intersects with our concept of justice. Most clearly in the Oresteia, but also in the PB (see just below)
• Sophocles, in contradistinction, seems generally more interested in the idea of the hero: in the question of how extraordinary mortals feed into essential questions like justice, and wisdom, and the proper relationship between mortal and divine worlds, between what is public and what is private, etc.

Background and Preliminaries

• Theodicy: looking back to Aeschylus
• Homer's Iliad & Aeschylus

 
• The story of Procne & Philomela: Tereus, Itys; nightingale, swallow
• The two dirges (kommos, threnos) in Sophocles & Aeschylus: note how differently they set up the tone that surrounds the figure of Electra
• References to the tale: *107ff, *146ff, 242, 255, 284, *1076
• Story: Tereus and Procne marry; Tereus rapes Procne's sister, Philomela, and cuts out her tongue; Philomela embroiders cloth to inform Procne of the rape; Procne kills son Itys and serves the child to Tereus as a stew; Tereus in rage pursues Pr. and Ph.; Pr. and Ph. call on gods for help, and are turned into a swallow & nightingale
• musical recording
• WHY is this story so prominent in Electra's self-presentation; and how does the use of this myth differ from Aeschylus?
• eating children motif (Again!)
• lex talionis: law of revenge!
• a justified revenge?
• note however that this is somewhat different (the focus on a particular tale) from Aeschylus' use of image clusters

 
• Niobe story: another just revenge? or an example of the excess of divine retribution?
• Niobe boasts that her 6 sons and 6 daughters are better than the one son and daughter of Leto; Leto in divine anger directs her son, Apollo, and her daughter, Artemis, to kill the children of Niobe; Niobe is turned into an ever weeping stone

 
• Homer & Sophocles: the two versions of the tale of the death of Agamemnon, but also of Orestes and the matricide
• WHY does S. choose the Homeric version?
• and does he, entirely? (Winnington-Ingram: "The Electra of Sophocles might be thought to prove the impossibility of objective literary criticism" (!)
• for it seems that critics can have diametrically opposed readings of the play, e.g.:
• (a) Homeric Sophocles, untroubled by the matricide
• (b) Aesch. sensitivity to the moral implications of the matricide, and the Furies waiting offstage to go after Orestes

 
• (a) Electra forgets all self-restraint in her madness for revenge (viciousness at 1416!)
• (b) Electra as the height of arete
• (cf Antigone: rock-tomb, sister, etc.)

Aeschylus and Sophocles compared: the construction of a Sophoclean Heroine
 

Aeschylus:

• Recognition of Orestes and Electra roughly 1/5 of the way into the play
• At first, Electra is a sidekick: in the kommos, she and Orestes sing a song of increasing murderous passion; but as the play goes on, El. is left more and more to one side altogether: clearly the focus here is on Oresters
• Aegisthus is quickly dispatched, then Orestes and Clytaemnestra have an argument on stage about the appropriateness of the child murdering his mother (Electra not at issue!)

Sophocles:

• Recognition of Orestes and Electra roughly 4/5 of the way into the play!
• Electra thus is left isolated for most of the play, and her isolation is the focus
• Introduction of sister, Chrysothemis, who like Ismene urges moderation, therefore pointing up how extreme is Electra, but also how alone: the solitary heroic figure dedicated to an ideal!
• Clytaemnestra quickly dispatched, then Aegisthus led offstage to his death at the end; the revenge happens too quickly for much consideration (Orestes acts without any hesitation, as though the matricide is unproblematic (cf. Homer!), though the play does leave us with the questions raised by Aeg. in the closing scene: getting the audience to think it through in the end)

• Clytaemnestra's arguments: 514ff
• Note her opening words to Electra!
• Centerpiece of argument: Was it just to kill Iphigenia in order for Agamemnon to help his brother Menelaus? Why not Menelaus' children?
• Do we feel doubts raised about Electra?
• Is Clytaemnestra (1) right? (2) dignified? in her complaints

 
• Electra's arguments:
• adultery was principal cause
• different version of the death of Iphigenia: Artemis, not Menelaus, was the impetus
• against (human) law
• offenses after the death: Aegisthus is king, new children will supplant the progeny of Agamemnon as heirs to the throne
• How convincing are El's arguments?
• Note chorus reaction: 610f: "I see [Electra] is angry, but whether it is justice, / I no longer see how I shall think of that

 
• Squabble afterwards: 612ff:
• Electra: ugly deeds are taught by ugly deeds: indeed!
• Like mother, like daughter???
• Note how absolute each woman is in thinking that she is right (for Electra, cf. interchange with Chrysothemis at 1041ff!)
• Each is equally close-minded to the arguments of the other
• In the end, they agree, the words don't matter, it's the (ugly) deeds
• They agree on the principle of justice: the principle of retaliation, of blood for blood, the law of the (female) Furies: a law founded not on reason, but on passion, on primordial instinct:
• note how Electra sets out, in the Agon, to reason with her mother, but she ends with an emotional outburst, to which Clyt. reacts in kind!
• The rationalist debate encapsulated in the agon turns out to be sham
• Sophocles' ironical way of pointing out that the conflict b/t El. and Clyt. is NOT based on rational grounds, but on conflicting loyalties
• Electra is Clyt.'s "true daughter":
• emotional temperament
• excessive confidence in her own convictions
• action: she too will conspire to strike against her closest kin in retaliation, and like her mother (remember the scene of the "spring shower" in the Agamemnon!) she will "get into" this act of violence:
• 1416: Electra to Orestes as he is killing their mother: "If you have the strength, strike her again!"

• What kind of heroine, then?

 

The Sophoclean heroine: Electra and Antigone compared
 

Similarities:

• Relationship b/t Electra & Chrysothemis, compare that b/t Antigone and Ismene
• "living tomb": why are both to be treated in this way?
• both: passionate confidence in her own convictions, and determination in the face of all to ACT in accordance with these convictions
• this excess, this passion is what sets them apart as "heroes", as s.th. we admire, whether or not we approve!
• a compulsiveness, a solipsism, a ferociousness that is not very attractive:
• but also a steadiness in the pursuit of an ideal that is very admirable, perhaps also attractive
• the fact of their femaleness makes this all the more problematic, as (I think) it is intended to
• we might have less trouble with this blind pursuit of the heroic ideal if the figure were a man, and the issues were not those of the familty, but those of war or the state (at least if we were Athenians!)

• Age and experience: Antigone little more than a child: though she has been molded by a life of unexampled horror (and is thus half in love with Death) she has not suffered from long eroding years of hatred like Electra; her concern is more love for her brother than hatred of her antagonist, Creon
• Nature of the duty: Antigone feels the duty to bury her brother (humane! sympathetic!); Electra feels the duty to kill or help kill her mother (inhuman! revolting!)

• Electra, as Sophocles depicts her
• Orestes, ditto
• Clytaemnestra, ditto
• Chrysothemis