In this week's readings, I was most struck by the way women were treated by the men around them and portrayed by the writers who wrote about them. Helen is nothing if not a villain for Euripides, and Clytemnestra is a murderous whore for Sophocles. But it is Electra who suffers the most for her biological gender. The reader should feel bad for her because she is unmarried, a virgin, a weakling who relies upon the men in her life. For Euripedes, she is a maternal character who dotes upon her sick brother and relies upon him and his criminal activity to save her from death. For Sophocles, she is a victim of circumstances around her, powerless to change her life until her heroic brother Orestes rescues her. In both plays, Electra's voice advanced the plot. And yet, Electra doesn't really have a voice, at all.
I discussed this with Martin earlier in the week, and we had to agree to disagree. He thinks that the playwrights were challenging gender stereotypes by exposing them to such an extreme degree. A true challenge to societal norms, in my opinion, would have been to make Electra a confident, assertive, even aggressive woman who is able to avenge her father on her own. Merely writing about sex discrimination - or any kind of discrimination - isn't enough to combat that in society which needs to change.
I think many people who are discriminated against can relate to different aspects of this play. If you are an immigrant, or if you look other than white, then perhaps you can relate to the slave in Euripides, who is spared by Orestes after a humiliating and humbling encounter with him. If you are a woman, then perhaps you know what it is like watch the men around you succeed, despite your own attempts in the same arena. If you are a (gasp!) single woman, then perhaps you know the sting of being reduced to your relationship status. The episodes of discrimination about which we read this week aren't so very far removed from the way society operates today. The disappointment, for me, is that the discrimination in the plays is never remedied - or even countered.
Thank you, thank you for sticking to the "useful ideas" concept; I like how you draw contemporary parallels here. I just posted an optional supplementary article on the wiki, which Frank highly recommends and which addresses gender in Greek theater. I think you'll find it interesting.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, is Sophocles's Electra "powerless to change" or does she steadfastly refuse to do so despite the attempts of all around her to force her to? Yes, she's a victim of circumstances beyond her control, but she adamantly refuses to accept them and move on. True, she can't act on her own...but maybe mental resolve and resistance is an act in its own right. I tend to find Euripides's Electra the more pathetically impotent of the two, but I may be in the minority there.
I think that she is "powerless to change" in that to do so - to change - would be to deny the only sense of herself that she actually wants to retain. She wants to be Agamemnon's daughter. She wants to be Orestes sister. To genuinely participate in the life around her would be to dishonor the memory of her father and cede hope for her brother's return. She is caught between the living and the dead in a way that gives her no alternative way to exist.
ReplyDeleteAll this is not to say that Euripedes' Electra isn't pathetic, also. I just wanted to shake her and scream "Grow a spine!" I think I felt less toward Euripedes' Electra because she didn't just participate in a "justice killing"; she then also participated in a calculated act of revenge.
I can understand your arguments, as many of the women in the plays, specially when you consider that in Sophocles' play, the main passion comes from Electra, yet, the action course is leaded by Orestes' actions. This dichotomy to me portrays precisely what you are saying: The women could feel the need for justice, yet, a male intervention, (or divine) was required for such justice to be achieved.
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