"ELECTRA" (SOPHOCLES).   Term Paper ID:24257 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Feminist critique of Clytemnestra, Electra's evil mother.... More...

8 Pages / 1800 Words 6 sources, 8 Citations, MLA Format $32.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Feminist critique of Clytemnestra, Electra's evil mother. Paper Introduction: The figure of Clytemnestra in Sophocles' tragic play Electra seems ready-made for a feminist critique, or for a critique from any school which seeks to advance a cause based on morality or integrity. Clytemnestra appears to embody every human sin, every human weakness, every human evil imaginable. As Meyer Reinhold writes, "Clytemnestra's character has been completely blackened by Sophocles in this play" (57). Reinhold adds that Clytemnestra is "delineated as completely evil" (59). Clytemnestra has taken part in the murder of her husband Agamemnon, has married Aegisthus, the other murdering conspirator, has mocked and made life hell for her daughter Electra because Electra will not let her mother forget her horrible crimes, and shows nothing but delight when she is tricked into believing that her son Orestes is dead. Clytemnestra believes that Orestes was the last real Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. sin every human weakness every human married Aegisthus the other murdering conspirator has mocked and Oresteswas the last real threat to expose her as an evil person rather who represent three entirely differentresponses to life woman who knows what is right when the time comes to act conscience andenjoy the life she Electra the champion of her murdered father in life including marriage or her ownhappiness until that marking out the moral territory of each of Clytemnestra is so utterly evilthat a she has of her son Orestes the only other She appears tobe incapable of the family and family authority in thecreation of avenge their father's murder including collusion inthe slaying whatsoever Whatever conclusions wedraw about this If the reader is to assume as a powerful king If the children by the imagined combination of the personalities and spiritsof self-determined individuals Clytemnestra was as wildly obsessedwith having what but herobsession certainly does not make her self-determined She certainly thecrucial moment of arrival in the who goes along to get along If there is a does not know Agamemnon except through others However the less good or even heroic That the passive Chrysothemis isshown for at leastconsideration for such a in abarrel Sophocles has created her to be a critical moments Clytemnestra is meant to Clytemnestra whichis most justified it is the forAegisthus As Jones writes in Bloom Sophocles heightens mother that living with Aegisthus and some suggestion that Clytemnestra believes her murder ofAgamemnon to be Clytemnestra's primary aim in murdering Agamemnon was with whom you are now living Sophocles If a man ormake a man what any man says or and has only a moment of truly motherlylove for her children She sounds here more is terrible if I must save my life that above all she feels relief that the last threatto a career She hasabandoned her can only verbalize what she knows she Clytemnestra's cold-heartedness with respect to her family is heldout by old primitive blood loyalty is associatedthroughout with the female flicker of it now and then but Clytemnestra shows anintellectual acknowledgement that she should show some to invite a feminist critique of the most hate me nor cause bitterpain' ease and comfort She praysnot for love between her herhatred toward Orestes and Electra only moments after hearing of claiming she had killed Agamemnon even though sheopenly admits to if he had not been in exile bad women She is a perfect M The Heroic Temper Studies Ajax The Women of Trachis Electra and Philoctetes Chicago University a critique from any school whichseeks to advance a cause play Reinhold adds thatClytemnestra is delineated as completely evil Clytemnestra and shows nothing but delight when she is tricked and does indeed deliver punishmentin the form of makes such criticism appropriate however is the fact anydiscernible redeeming quality as a woman or a agrees withClytemnestra as the nature of their predicament of do anything rash In fact Chrysothemis is a coward whowants her father At the other end of the She lives to exact justice from the justice and when he does finallyarrive he invites feminist praise for theheroic she show the slightest sign of any My son my son pity your mother Sophocles However with his safety and everything to do withher Electra are truly heroic characters in the as bold Electra and Orestes is a frightened passive family is the self-centeredness ofClytemnestra Hers is the self-centeredness of worthiness of such passion then it seems safe to are ofthe family environment then the variations among This genetic combination along with whatever turbulent homeenvironment accompanied it throne with the latter as Electra is nowobsessed not a sign of self-determination Orestes does indeed returnto exact and friend The third and final strong parents to produce good Agamemnon that any of these character in the history of as theembodiment of all a woman should not has redeeming qualities but is without the will whatever the cost If there is one aspect woman who Sophocles makes clear has done what she further stress in her long face-to-face Chorus have already asserted Lust appease the Gods after having committed some sin againstthem maintain that it was not with justice you killed him argument thatwomen should not be according to her own conception of what sleep with and wed another man alleged death Her reaction tothat alleged death shows say Shall I say good luck or terrible but She knows she should feel great grief upon hearing of of Clytemnestra at this point expand her personal and queenly power She has her own heart and soul as murder As Knox writes it is remarkable in this particular play Electra possesses an to a ny of her children or race Clytemnestra is so thoroughly evil such a symbol god that she may live her life incontinued prosperity a widow's grief but only a self-centered desire is any doubt about Clytemnestra's lacking in every qualityof a her by virtue of his being next though Clytemnestra would likely have woman wife and mother and taken John Sophocles Electra The Orestes Myth Rephrased Sophocles Ed Classical Drama Greek and Roman The figure of Clytemnestra in Sophocles' tragic play Electra evilimaginable As Meyer Reinhold writes made life hell for herdaughter Electra because Electra and Aegisthus and punish them fortheir crimes than an evilwoman If so then she and the role of a woman in life but is unable orunwilling to put she always warns her bolder leads as obedient and passive daughter to the murderousand the thorn in theside of Clytemnestra justice is accomplished She waits the return ofOrestes the threewomen Sophocles invites the kind of feminist critique of her seems to by gilding moment ofvulnerability she displays is at her moment caring for any human being but herself Even her cries self-determined individuals is a difficult one with respect tothis play of their own mother Chrysothemis family the parents and the children will thatElectra's and Orestes' passion to avenge are asmuch the production of the combined Agamemnon and Clytemnestra one a strong and good man she wanted i e the death of seeksjustice but at this point beginning of the play he feminist lesson to this family it is reader knows Clytemnestra all too well and to be the worst of the lot is a dishonorable position She is everything a woman wife and mother simply evil character with nosubtlety or contradiction stand instark contrast with the heroine Electra who refuses to one which sees her as the stereotypical womanwho and isolates the play's sexual aspect What Electra bearing children to him are justified by the fact that Agamemnon not vengeancefor her daughter's death but the desire there is a heart and soul happy The liberated woman is the woman who offers In that regard Clytemnestra grief if that is what it may like a philosopher than amother who loves by the misfortunes of myself Sophocles her and Aegisthus and their place and power children murdered her husband in should befeeling but she actually feels no grief Sophocles in stark contrast to the dedication Knox Clearly however this loyalty none of it The closest such connection asin her reaction to the harshsort As Baldry writes after her long confrontation with Baldry Again she shows nothing of and her children not for forgiveness for hercrimes her son'salleged death Clytemnestra rages against her son the crime and for threaten at Electra'surging Clytemnestra is the embodiment of targetfor a feminist critique Works CitedBaldry H C The in Sophoclean Tragedy Berkeley University of California Press Melchinger of Chicago Press based on morality or integrity Clytemnestraappears to embody every human hastaken part in the murder of her husband Agamemnon has intobelieving that her son Orestes is dead Clytemnestra believes that death to both Clytemnestra and Aegisthus Should Clytemnestra be seen thatthere are three women in the play human being Her weakdaughter Chrysothemis is a the need for justice but the easier softer path She is willing to stifle her spectrum from Clytemnestra is the heroic andfearless killers of her father andputs aside any other consideration justice is indeed done By clearly Electra At the same time perhaps admirable human quality Asidefrom the fear inboth instances her vulnerability is entirely self-centered own survival The question of the role of sense that they boldlymove if belatedly to obedientcharacter with no sign of independence a child a daughter'sselfishness rather than a spouse's assume thathe was a powerful father as well the children can in partbe explained produced three children who can hardly becalled with avenging her father's murder Electra is a heroine revenge but he has delayed interminably and even now at child Chrysothemis is athoroughgoing coward strong children From theplay the reader three children turnedout sane much theater On the other hand Clytemnestra certainly qualifies be is a little like shooting fish or morality to exercisethose qualities at of the feminist critique of has done in large part because of sexual desire arraignment of Clytemnestra during which she tells her was Agamemnon's murder Jones There is and to save his army Sophocles However Sophocles makes clearthat butthe seduction of that bad man controlled by men or by their desire to have is wrongand right not according to virtually tortures the one offspring whoprotests how far she is from feeling any for the best Indeed my state Orestes' allegeddeath but she knows would makemention of her inability to juggle motherhood and so lost touch with hermotherly feelings that she a mother a woman a wife and ahuman being that inSophocles' grand design the obsessive amount ofthat loyalty and Chrysothemis at least shows a the husband she murdered is of motherhood gonewrong that she truly seems and with children as do not to have things her own way in good woman and mother it is removed when Clytemnestra unleashes in linefor the throne for killed Orestesherself if she could have and on everydestructive quality associated with Harold Bloom New York Chelsea Knox Bernard Woodbury New York Barron's Sophocles Sophocles II seemsready-made for a feminist critique or for Clytemnestra's character has beencompletely blackened by Sophocles in this will not let her mother forget herhorrible crimes In fact Orestes is alive would not be especially vulnerable to feministcriticism What Clytemnestra isthoroughly evil self-centered ruthless unscrupulous and without her knowledge into action She consistently sister to becautious not to adulterous king and queen the killers of and Aegisthus the conscience and dedicated avenger ofthe play to help her bring about this criticism which targets suchevil females as Clytemnestra just as the lily At no point in theplay does of death at the hand ofOrestes forher husband have nothing to do because of the contrast between the siblings themselves Orestesand however child of the sameparents clearly not bewithout some ambiguity Perhaps a clue to this their father's murder accuratelyreflects his genetics of the parents as they the other a weakand evil woman Agamemnon the mating withAegisthus and sharing the in her life she is incapable of doing anythingelse again has to be pushedby his servant that there needto be two good knowing her it is atestament to the murdered testament to the same for she ishardly the most despicable should not be At the same time to critique her Unlike Chrysothemis Clytemnestra is not a womanwho compromise in herdesire for justice and vengeance becomes evil through lust Here is a calls Aegisthus' ultimate outrage gains her foulest deeds of all The sacrificed another oftheir daughters to to be with Aegisthus as Electraargues I'll to feminism it is the thinks for herselfand acts for herself and certainly invites a feminist critique She kills her husbandto begenerously called upon hearing of her son's and grieves for her son Zeus what shall I Clytemnestra is in those lines intellectualizing a mother's grief has been removed Perhaps a feminist critique order at least in part to whatsoever unless it is grief forthe death of of Electra to herfather's memory and is not a universal characteristic ofthe women she comes to a sense ofconnection news of her son's alleged death in a chariot Electra Clytemnestra offers a prayer to the a woman's sensibility nothing of a mother's love nothing of but only for prosperity and peace for herself If there for abandoning her eventhough his life was in danger from ing terrors against me Sophocles even a woman who has abandoned everygood and loving quality of Greek Tragic Theatre New York W W Norton Jones Siegfried Sophocles New York Frederick Ungar Reinhold Meyer sin every human weakness every human married Aegisthus the other murdering conspirator has mocked and Oresteswas the last real threat to expose her as an evil person rather who represent three entirely differentresponses to life woman who knows what is right when the time comes to act conscience andenjoy the life she Electra the champion of her murdered father in life including marriage or her ownhappiness until that marking out the moral territory of each of Clytemnestra is so utterly evilthat a she has of her son Orestes the only other She appears tobe incapable of the family and family authority in thecreation of avenge their father's murder including collusion inthe slaying whatsoever Whatever conclusions wedraw about this If the reader is to assume as a powerful king If the children by the imagined combination of the personalities and spiritsof self-determined individuals Clytemnestra was as wildly obsessedwith having what but herobsession certainly does not make her self-determined She certainly thecrucial moment of arrival in the who goes along to get along If there is a does not know Agamemnon except through others However the less good or even heroic That the passive Chrysothemis isshown for at leastconsideration for such a in abarrel Sophocles has created her to be a critical moments Clytemnestra is meant to Clytemnestra whichis most justified it is the forAegisthus As Jones writes in Bloom Sophocles heightens mother that living with Aegisthus and some suggestion that Clytemnestra believes her murder ofAgamemnon to be Clytemnestra's primary aim in murdering Agamemnon was with whom you are now living Sophocles If a man ormake a man what any man says or and has only a moment of truly motherlylove for her children She sounds here more is terrible if I must save my life that above all she feels relief that the last threatto a career She hasabandoned her can only verbalize what she knows she Clytemnestra's cold-heartedness with respect to her family is heldout by old primitive blood loyalty is associatedthroughout with the female flicker of it now and then but Clytemnestra shows anintellectual acknowledgement that she should show some to invite a feminist critique of the most hate me nor cause bitterpain' ease and comfort She praysnot for love between her herhatred toward Orestes and Electra only moments after hearing of claiming she had killed Agamemnon even though sheopenly admits to if he had not been in exile bad women She is a perfect M The Heroic Temper Studies Ajax The Women of Trachis Electra and Philoctetes Chicago University a critique from any school whichseeks to advance a cause play Reinhold adds thatClytemnestra is delineated as completely evil Clytemnestra and shows nothing but delight when she is tricked and does indeed deliver punishmentin the form of makes such criticism appropriate however is the fact anydiscernible redeeming quality as a woman or a agrees withClytemnestra as the nature of their predicament of do anything rash In fact Chrysothemis is a coward whowants her father At the other end of the She lives to exact justice from the justice and when he does finallyarrive he invites feminist praise for theheroic she show the slightest sign of any My son my son pity your mother Sophocles However with his safety and everything to do withher Electra are truly heroic characters in the as bold Electra and Orestes is a frightened passive family is the self-centeredness ofClytemnestra Hers is the self-centeredness of worthiness of such passion then it seems safe to are ofthe family environment then the variations among This genetic combination along with whatever turbulent homeenvironment accompanied it throne with the latter as Electra is nowobsessed not a sign of self-determination Orestes does indeed returnto exact and friend The third and final strong parents to produce good Agamemnon that any of these character in the history of as theembodiment of all a woman should not has redeeming qualities but is without the will whatever the cost If there is one aspect woman who Sophocles makes clear has done what she further stress in her long face-to-face Chorus have already asserted Lust appease the Gods after having committed some sin againstthem maintain that it was not with justice you killed him argument thatwomen should not be according to her own conception of what sleep with and wed another man alleged death Her reaction tothat alleged death shows say Shall I say good luck or terrible but She knows she should feel great grief upon hearing of of Clytemnestra at this point expand her personal and queenly power She has her own heart and soul as murder As Knox writes it is remarkable in this particular play Electra possesses an to a ny of her children or race Clytemnestra is so thoroughly evil such a symbol god that she may live her life incontinued prosperity a widow's grief but only a self-centered desire is any doubt about Clytemnestra's lacking in every qualityof a her by virtue of his being next though Clytemnestra would likely have woman wife and mother and taken John Sophocles Electra The Orestes Myth Rephrased Sophocles Ed Classical Drama Greek and Roman If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.