The Redeeming Features of the Characters in Electra Essay -- Euripides

The Redeeming Features of the Characters in Electra In Euripides Electra, there be a number of parts, speaking and non-speaking, that reveal the redeeming features of the otherwise pitiful characters. This show will consider the roles of Orestes, Electra, Clytemnestra, the Peasant and Aegisthus (whose actions are only reported to us). It is problematic that the characters are not redeemable due simply to the plot of the convey a son returns, kills his fathers unworthy successor, his mother (with the aid of his sister) and was sent outside(a) at the end of the play by divine judgement. His sister back up him in the matricide and is sent away also. However, it is unrealistic for all the characters of a cataclysm not to tolerate any good qualities. The nature of tragedy, according to Aristotle, is to posit pity (kitharsis), cleansing the soul - this can not be invoked if the characters are bad people, since we will feel no pity. Aristotle described Euripides as the to the highest degree tragic of the poets... so it is likely for the playwright to adapt to Aristotles rules for tragedy. Bad happenings (hamartia) are required to happen to good people, who may not be only if noble hardly are still respectably good. For example, in Oedipus Rex, Oedipus scorns the prophecies of Apollo but he is a noble King, who feels compassion for his people and his destined mollycoddle was only the result of his uninformed actions. Orestes is the avenging son of Agamemnon, returned to his homeland. We would expect this man to be the tragic hero of the play but he does not conform to the specifications. He is not a powerful character and is constantly in need of guidance, acting simply as a loaded stem (What do you suggest?). When ... ...er in the plays duration, with a account of murder that seems fragmented from this person as we see her. Finally, Aegisthus, though amiable to his guests, has an undeniable history of murder and the people are happy to see him go. If he does have redeemable qualities, they are few. Works Cited Euripides. Electra. Trans. Philip Vellacott. Medea and Other Plays. Baltimore Penguin Classics, 1963. 105-152, 201-204. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. Trans. Clifton Fadiman. New York capital of Delaware Publications, 1995. Perseus Encyclopedia. Revised 1999. Tufts University. www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia?entry=Euripides>. Powell, Barry. Classical Myth. Upper Saddle River, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001. March, Jennifer. Euripides the Mysogynist? Euripides, Women, and Sexuality. Ed. Anton Powell. New York Routledge, 1990.