This Blog is devoted to Sophocles's masterpiece, Elektra. According to my Literature teachers, this is what we deserve to do after suffering already 4 years from English Literature. For a few months there will be few posts that will represent, analyze and help all of us understand this fascinating work of Sophocles himself.


Story of Electra takes place in Mycenae, in Ancient Greece. Before we can start talking about this magnificent story, we need a little bit of a background here. When resident king Agamemnon, returned from the Troy, his wife Clytemnestra and her new lover Aegisthus murdered him and stole the throne. Agamemnon’s and Clymnestra’s daughter Electra has smuggled her brother Orestes out of the town to safety. He was sent to grow up far away with the old slave, his servant. Orestes really grew up in a foreign land and wanted to come back and avenge his father, Agamemnon.

Orestes's servant, Paedagogus, told Orestes a lot about his father and Greece. He told him the story that long ago, when his father died, he was the one to carry him out. Since then, Paedagogus has been raising Orestes to revenge his father's death and taught him everything he needed to know.


Orestes praises Paedagogus's nobility. He is comparing him to a faithful old horse. He tells him of his plans. Orestes went to see the Delphic Oracle. Orestes asked Oracle how should he revenge his fathes murderers. Phoebus told him:
 “Take not spear nor shield nor host;
 “Take not spear nor shield nor host; “Take not spear nor shield nor host;


*(f.y.i. One of the most interesting quotes in the play)

go yourself and craft of hand

be yours to kill, with justice but with stealth.”