43 pages • 1 hour read
EuripidesA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The play’s motif of the quotidian and domestic items—food, clothing, chores—is somewhat surprising in a Greek tragedy. Usually, Greek tragedies cultivate a very elevated and heroic tone, taking place in a remote mythical past and putting on stage larger-than-life figures such as heroes and gods. In the brutal, anti-heroic world of Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon dresses in rags and manages the house of a simple Farmer. The simplicity of the home becomes a symbol for the degraded values of the characters.
Electra speaks of her role in keeping the house “tidy” (76), tells Orestes of how she must “weave my clothes myself and slavelike at the loom” (307) or of how she goes to “fetch and carry water from the riverside” (309). She bickers with her husband over how “bare” (404) their house is. The play is punctuated with bits of domestic folk wisdom, often coming from the Farmer, sometimes reminiscent of the rustic didactic poetry (such as Hesiod’s Works and Days) that was popular in ancient Greece—for example, the Farmer’s statement that “A lazy man may rustle gods upon his tongue / but never makes a living if he will not work” (80-81), or:
By Euripides
Alcestis
Euripides
Cyclops
Euripides
Hecuba
Euripides
Helen
Euripides
Heracles
Euripides
Hippolytus
Euripides
Ion
Ed. John C. Gilbert, Euripides
Iphigenia in Aulis
Euripides
Medea
Euripides
Orestes
Euripides
The Bacchae
Euripides
Trojan Women
Euripides
Ancient Greece
View Collection
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
Brothers & Sisters
View Collection
Family
View Collection
Hate & Anger
View Collection
Mythology
View Collection
Revenge
View Collection
Sexual Harassment & Violence
View Collection
Tragic Plays
View Collection