‘Euripides’ ‘Elektra’ can hardly be described as a tragedy in view of its in heroic characters and excessive realism. Discuss.

'Euripides' 'Elektra' can hardly be described as a tragedy in view of its in heroic characters and excessive realism. Discuss.

Before Agamemnon returned from Troy, Elektra, fearing that Aegisthus would murder Orestes, had sent him away from Argos to be brought up by Strophius, king of Phocis. In Euripides' play both Orestes and Elektra are far from heroic. The murder of Aegisthus is shown as inglorious as 'Orestes rose on his toes, and struck him on the joint of the neck, shattering his spine'. He was a coward to attack Aegisthus the way he did, from behind. The death of Clytaemnestra is just as revolting as Orestes and Elektra are both overcome with horror with what they had done and were covered in her blood.

Euripides shows the revenge as conceived and executed in fear and weakness. Orestes, when faced with this dilemma, trusts the oracle of Apollo because he does not have the strength to trust in the rightness of what he has done at Apollo's command. The brutality of this command was a challenge to Orestes, making him appear to be more of a normal person than a hero. Being weak, he preferred sin under authority to the risks of moral independence.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Elektra appears to use several phrases which suggest that her degradation and grief have led to exaggerated self-pity; and that the thought of Orestes returning to save her is her one luxury in life. She gives the impression that she is having a bad moment and that she hasn't lived with reality for a long time. She says '"Oh! My misery is unbearable, my life hateful"', but really it is not that bad and she is being very unrealistic about the situation which is something which occurs to normal people, as peasants' lives are very similar and they don't complain. In Elektra's imagination her absent brother is a romantic hero. However, when she finds out whom he is and that he has been in hiding, she is disappointed and her high hopes are crushed.

When Orestes asks Elektra '"How would Orestes, if he came, react to your situation?"', she answers making it clear that she expects him to carry out full revenge immediately and that she will help him, even if that means killing Clytaemnestra with her own hands. This is when Orestes should reveal himself, but he does not, because he knows that, once Elektra recognises him, he is then committed to murdering his mother and Aegisthus. He is given the opportunity to appear as a hero but instead is given the image of a coward.

When the old man insists on identifying Orestes, the chief emotion is embarrassment which makes the whole scene appear very emotionally realistic. He reacts like how a normal person would have reacted in the same situation and not like a fictional character.

Orestes' exploit is not only in heroic, in the way he killed Aegisthus, but also sacrilegious. At the end when Orestes and Elektra kill Clytaemnestra, Elektra's nerves fail and she leaves Orestes to do the actual killing. Then when Clytaemnestra is dead, Orestes and Elektra, who were trying not to know each other, find that they are alone together in a ruthless world. They discover that each is the other's only friend and they are forced to part.

I think that it is not like other tragedies in the sense that Euripides added a lot of realism into his characters and gave a believable plot. Orestes was not given the attitude of a hero but of an average person. He was afraid of the outcome of killing someone, especially his own mother and he was scared of the consequences. Fear being an emotion which would never be found in a hero. Elektra is like every other girl as having images and dreams of a perfect life and a perfect image of her brother being a romantic hero, almost like a knight in shining armour.

The play had contained a lot of realism and the characters were in heroic, scared and unsure of what they really wanted; characteristics which would never be found in a typical heroic character.