Electra

Euripides' Electra (Ancient Greek: Ἠλέκτρα, Ēlektra) is a tragedy probably written in the mid 410s BC, likely before 413 BC. A version of the myth of the house of Atreus, Euripides' play reworks important aspects of the story found in Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy (especially the second play, Libation Bearers) and also in Sophocles' Electra, although the relative dating of Euripides' and Sophocles' plays remain uncertain. In his tragedy, Euripides introduces startling and disturbing elements that ask his audience (and readers) to question the nature of tragic 'heroism,' assumptions of appropriate gender behavior, and the morality of both human characters and the gods.

Years before the start of the play, at the outset of the Trojan War, the Greek general Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, sacrifices his daughter Iphigeneia in order to appease the goddess Artemis. While his sacrifice allows the Greek army to sail for Troy, it leads to deep resentment from his wife, Clytemnestra, who also has born Agamemnon's other children, Orestes and Electra. When Agamemnon returns victorious from the Trojan War ten years later, Clytemnestra (in this version and some others, she is helped by her lover Aegisthus) murders him in the bath. Orestes goes into exile, while Electra remains in the palace under the thumb of her mother and Aegisthus, the new rulers in Argos.