Electra - Psychology, Adaptations of the Electra story

In Greek tragedies, but not in Homer, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who assisted her brother Orestes when he arrived in Argos to avenge his father, and who later married his friend Pylades. Her personality is developed in different ways by the playwrights.

In Greek mythology, Electra was daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.

Electra was absent from Mycenae when her father, King Agamemnon, returned from the Trojan War and was murdered by Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's lover, and/or by Clytemnestra herself. Eight years later Electra was brought from Athens with her brother, Orestes. 25), Orestes was saved by his old nurse or by Electra, and was taken to Phanote on Mount Parnassus, where King Strophius took charge of him. In his twentieth year, Orestes was ordered by the Delphic oracle to return home and avenge his father's death.

According to Aeschylus, he met Electra before the tomb of Agamemnon, where both had gone to perform rites to the dead; Pylades and Orestes killed Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (in some accounts with Electra helping).

Afterwards, Orestes went mad, and was pursued by the Erinyes, or Furies, whose duty it is to punish any violation of the ties of family piety.

In Iphigeneia in Tauris, Euripides tells the tale somewhat differently. The two met when Orestes and Pylades were brought to Iphigeneia to be prepared for sacrifice to Artemis. Iphigeneia, Orestes and Pylades escaped from Tauris, and the Furies, sated by the reunion of the family, abated their persecution.

Later, Pylades and Electra fell in love and married. Pylades was the son of King Strophius (who had cared for Orestes while he hid from his mother and her lover), and had helped Orestes and Electra kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

According to Euripides, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus had previously given Electra in marriage to a peasant, believing that her children would be less likely to take revenge if they were not of noble birth, but the peasant respected her and declined to consummate the marriage.

Psychology

The psychological concept of the Electra complex is named after her.

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Adaptations of the Electra story

The Oresteia, a trilogy of plays by Aeschylus Electra, play by Sophocles Electra, play by Euripides Electra, drama by Danilo Kiš The Flies, a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, modernizing the Electra myth around the theme of existentialism.