Is There Any Justification For Regarding Euripedes' Electra As An Inferior Tragedy?

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of their crime for the rest of their lives.
The tragedy in Electra is not simply confined to the action of the play, and in the first speech the Peasant reveals to the audience that it is more of an ongoing affliction on the house of Agamemnon. In one sentence the Peasant reveals the sole reason for Electra's revenge, and the reason for this play itself, when he tells us how Agamemnon "died, by his wife Clytamnestra's treachery and by Aegisthus' murderous hand." It soon becomes apparent that Agamemnon's daughter will not let this crime rest either and she herself feels like she has been treated a great injustice after her mother, "to show Aegisthus favour, drives me out of doors." And "treats me and Orestes both as bastards of her house." Electra clearly wants revenge, but does not believe she can avenge her father's death without her brother to whom she prays to; "save me from misery and weariness… Let Orestes, wherever he be, punish the murderers of our father!" Electra ...

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hands of Aegisthus who "grasps in his bloody hand the very sceptre which my father carried when he led Hellas to war." A Greek audience would have seen this, as a grievous injustice by Aegisthus. Funerals were seen as very significant and important to the ancient Greeks in their transition to the afterlife, so for Aegisthus to desecrate and scorn Agamemnon's grave in this manner is a huge insult.
It is only when the Old Man (whom Electra requests the presence of to assist her hospitality) recognises Orestes for who he really is that brother and sister are reunited. They waste no time in planning their revenge and the Old Man divulges to Orestes that Aegisthus will soon be making a ...

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