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A review by sofiasshelves
Electra by Sophocles
3.0
and here we can see sophocles who wrote both my favorite greek play (antigone) and the one that fills me with the most rage (elektra), everyone let's appreciate this man's range.
listen it's very hard for me to read this play because not only am i clytemnestra apologist but also (spoiler btw! this play is two thousand years old but still) elektra does... almost nothing? she simply waits until her brother returns and then he does all the killing. so like what am i reading then. she also condemns her mother for killing someone in response to a murder, then says she wants to kill her mother for killing agammenon. make it make sense.
with all this said, the translation i read was good and the writing did go kinda hard i said that but i stand by it. like say what i will, but this was written in 410bc right, and obviously there's a lot that separates us from the ancient greeks which make it so things get lost for me (there's over two thousand years of difference of culture between sophocles and me, and i'm not a classist where it'd be easier for me to close the cultural gap), but like this is fun.
this also made me really want to read the oresteia which i'm counting as a win.
anyway this was fun though! elektra is just not a protagonist i enjoy most of the times even if she has her moments, and overall i hate agammenon with a burning passion, so it's hard for me not to root for clytemnestra here, who is written as a villain.
listen it's very hard for me to read this play because not only am i clytemnestra apologist but also (spoiler btw! this play is two thousand years old but still) elektra does... almost nothing? she simply waits until her brother returns and then he does all the killing. so like what am i reading then. she also condemns her mother for killing someone in response to a murder, then says she wants to kill her mother for killing agammenon. make it make sense.
with all this said, the translation i read was good and the writing did go kinda hard i said that but i stand by it. like say what i will, but this was written in 410bc right, and obviously there's a lot that separates us from the ancient greeks which make it so things get lost for me (there's over two thousand years of difference of culture between sophocles and me, and i'm not a classist where it'd be easier for me to close the cultural gap), but like this is fun.
this also made me really want to read the oresteia which i'm counting as a win.
anyway this was fun though! elektra is just not a protagonist i enjoy most of the times even if she has her moments, and overall i hate agammenon with a burning passion, so it's hard for me not to root for clytemnestra here, who is written as a villain.