Elucidating Electra

Within the myth of Electra, multiple elements of virtually all theoretical approaches to mythology are found. The various incarnations of the Electra myth generally go like this: Agamemnon marries Clytemnestra and together they have three children: Iphigenia, Electra, and Orestes. Agamemnon goes off to fight in the Trojan War; he and his men get stuck – the wind won’t blow so their ships won’t sail – so he sacrifices his daughter, Iphigenia, as restitution for killing a stag sacred to Artemis. Clytemnestra is so angry at her husband for killing her daughter that she takes up with another man (Aegisthus) and, upon Agamemnon’s return, murders him. The murder of the father angers Orestes and especially Electra. The god Apollo orders Orestes to avenge his father’s death by killing his mother and stepfather, which he does so with the help of Electra. In summary: father kills daughter, wife kills husband, son kills step-father and mother. While the psychological approach seems to apply most fully, to gain the fullest possible understanding and appreciation for this (or any other) myth, one must approach it from multiple perspectives.

Applying the psychological approach to Electra, Freudian elements are rampant. The most obvious is that of “imaginative alleviating:” a face-your-fears therapeutic effect (7). The plot of Electra demonstrates several absolutely abhorrent situations, no one of which at face value is necessarily more or less abhorrent than the other. What mother would want to face her husband, knowing he killed his daughter, even if it was a “sacrifice” to appease a god and therefore potentially save the lives of many? Much less be the son ordered by a god to kill your own mother to avenge your father’s death? Through the myth of Electra, the reader/viewer can put themselves – safely – into a atrocious situation, ask themselves what would they do in the same situation, and find relief at the knowledge that it is not themselves who are in the situation. The thought of one’s mother killing her husband, your father, is a horrible tragedy no one would want to face, especially as the role of mother is one traditionally of nurturing and caring. The therapeutic effects of role-playing – even in roles as horrendous as those of these characters – are well known.

While not necessarily as obvious, elements of Freud’s Oedipus complex are also extant, and Jung’s Electra complex even more so (7-9). Orestes is conflicted between his love (and duty) for his mother with his hatred of her actions, Electra loses all love for her mother and “becomes hostile” to her mother somewhat as a rival but more so as the person who destroyed her first “true” love: her father (8). For Electra, Clytemnestra’s actions are “…most shameful thing of all…[to] sleep with the murderer with whom you … killed my father…” (453). From a Jungian perspective, Electra’s role is perhaps the most clear-cut, her reaction the most understandable: Mom killed Dad, my first love, the man she created me through, therefore Mom must atone (9). Electra’s stance is further supported by the fact that her mother not only killed her father, she betrayed him by cheating on him, in effect forcing her son into exile and imprisoning her daughter; multiple crimes of which any one of might be forgiven, but taken all together are unforgivable in Electra’s eyes.

Orestes faces perhaps the most difficult dilemma. Apollo orders him to avenge his father’s death – something that one is usually on fairly solid moral grounds in doing – but the person he must avenge his father’s death upon is his own mother. To kill one’s mother is beyond repugnant, but he must follow the law of the god Apollo. From a Jungian perspective, this is “(m)ost important of all, from the ensuing sense of guilt and sin for parricide emerges the conception of God as Father who must be appeased and to whom atonement must be made” (8). Orestes must “appease” Apollo and by extension, “appease” his father (8). Orestes’ role clearly exemplifies the “collective [unconscious] embrac[ing] political and social questions involving the group”: in this case, which law is more important (9)? The law of the gods (to avenge your father’s death) or the law of man and to a lesser extent the gods: that of not killing your mother? Is Orestes acting as a model “who teach[es] us how to behave” (9)? For the Greeks, yes, Orestes is teaching us how to behave: The avenging of the death of one’s father is of highest priority; one that is higher even than that of honoring the woman who gave birth to you. Orestes asks “How can I escape the curse of my father, if I do not act” (448)? This shows the conflict and moral doubt that Orestes faces, although his question is also one of decision: he must act; he has no choice regardless of the repercussions.

To gain a full understanding of the Electra myth, it is not enough to only view it through the psychological paradigm. Levi-Strauss’ structuralist theoretical approach provides further insight. For Strauss, myth is “a mode of communication,” one filled with the binary elements reflecting the binary nature of the human mind (12). Within Electra, binary elements are extensive: mother/daughter, father/son, brother/sister, mother/father, right/wrong, law of the gods/man, and love/hate, to name just a few. For Strauss, “myth … is a mode by which a society communicates and through which it finds a resolution between conflicting opposites” (13). Orestes faces, most compellingly, the battle between the “conflicting opposites” of law of the Gods and law of man. He chooses, as would be expected ultimately within the culture of the Greeks at the time, to choose to follow the law of the gods. Orestes and Electra both face the binary choice of father/mother, and both choose the side of the father, which also further supports the cultural expectations of the time of the father as “god” of the household, the ultimate authority within the family. By expressing these opposites as defined by Levi-Strauss, Electra provides further “imaginative alleviating” via Freudian methods. Through facing situations and decisions involving these “conflicting opposites,” Orestes in particular and the reader/viewer by osmosis must not only question their place and roles in the world, they must question the moral authority they live under and the choices they make based not only on social but also divine influence.

What is particularly compelling within this myth is that the duty to avenge the death of one’s father seems to apply equally to both the daughter and the son. Electra is under the same compulsion as Orestes, although without the obvious divine authority that Apollo has given Orestes. Her worldview is remarkably clear-cut and without the ethical ambiguity that Orestes faces of which law to follow: that of the god Apollo to avenge or of man not to kill. However, for Orestes, Apollo’s order is not as capricious as it may at first seem. Orestes is not only avenging his father’s death, he is also acting as the agent of punishment for Clytemnestra’s decision to act without divine authority. Clytemnestra in effect went against the wishes of Artemis by killing Agamemnon, who “simply” was providing restitution for the death of her sacred stag with the sacrifice of his daughter. Agamemnon was essentially clean in the eyes of Artemis and therefore Apollo; his debt to the gods was paid with his daughter’s sacrifice. Clytemnestra’s hands were “dirty,” however, for she chose to kill the “clean” Agamemnon on her own authority, with no word from the gods nor even authority from man-made laws. Her act was vengeful murder, pure and simple.

Walter Burkert (structuralist) points out that “classical myths have a “historical dimension” with “successive layers” of development … during which the original tale has been modified to fit the cultural or other circumstances of the time of its retelling” (15). This is particularly true of the myth of Electra, a myth that has been retold in one form or another for centuries; that has profound impact on not only the Greeks, but successive cultures since. For Burkert, all myths have “reference to ‘something of collective importance,’” and this is as true today of Electra as it was when first compiled (15). We are horrified when newscasters report on stories such as the case of Nancy Kissel who poisoned and bludgeoned her husband (who was cheating on her with other men) . This and other modern cases point out the very similar dilemmas as Electra: is it ever right for a wife to kill her husband, especially without divine authority? It is of cultural and “collective importance” to virtually all human societies that we feel safe within our own family structures. Death at the hand of a loved one – especially a mother or wife – is of the highest repugnance to our sensibilities. By providing us with examples such as Electra, we can see not only that “evil actions present a foil to enhance the good for all to see,” we can explore and define for ourselves both individually and as a society what exactly is not only evil and good, but how one should respond to both (461).

[1] Other cases I’ve seen recently on CNN: In Gambia, a 26-year-old wife has been arrested for killing her 76-year-old husband. In Tennessee, a woman and her lover were found guilty of murdering her husband. Then there is the Menendez brothers case …enough said!

Works Cited

Morford, Mark P.O. and Robert J. Lenardon. Classical Mythology. 8th Edition. Oxford University Press: New York. 2007.

Written for Professor Tanner's Greek & Roman Mythology Class at the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs, 7th November 2006.