Electra

Roles

• Electra - Young Adult (20-35), Female

About this piece

Electra laments her father's death to the Chorus

Summary

The play has the same setting and theme as Aeschylus' "The Libation Bearers". The background of the story is that Agamemnon, king of Argos, has been killed along with his mistress Cassandra, by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. By doing so Clytemnestra avenges the death of her daughter by Agamemnon, who had sacrificed her to the gods during the Trojan war. Electra is Clytemnestra's daughter. She, along with her brother Orestes, carry out a plot to kill their mother and her lover to avenge their father's death. In this monologue Electra is lamenting her fate to the Chorus. Not only her father has been killed, she also has to live with her father's killers, that is her mother ad Aegisthus, who are suspicious of her and treat her like a slave.

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