Euripides
Euripides was known throughout ancient Greece as one of the more controversial playwrights. His plays were often political and favored both women and the middle/lower class even though the basic plot was still drawn from mythology. He often came in third place during the City of Dionysia because of the nature of his work. His Electra serves as an example for how he would feature powerful women throughout his plays. While Euripides still uses the myth of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus murdering Agamemnon as a backstory for the play, his telling differs quite a bit from Sophocles. It is unclear which version came first, however, it is apparent that both were inspired by The Odyssey and The Oresteia.
Euripedes’ Electra opens with a prologue, in which a farmer tells the story of Clytemnestra murdering Agamemnon and then ruling over Argos with Aegisthus as her lover. This story then diverges from the other versions by having Clytemnestra marry off Electra to a poor farmer. While Clytemnestra initially did this to prevent Aegisthus from killing Electra, having Electra married off to a farmer disentitles her from her inheritance.
After the prologue, Electra enters and continues to lament about her tragic past. Eventually Orestes and Pylades arrive in disguise, they address Electra who begins to tell them the story of her family. The two are eventually joined by Electra’s husband and later an old servant, who had helped Orestes escape Clytemnestra and Aegisthus’ wrath when he was a child. The old servant recognizes Orestes by a scar on his forehead. Electra then embraces her brother and begins to plot the murder of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus with him.
Orestes leaves and chorus sings an epode about the curse on the House of Atreus. When they are finished a messenger arrives and tells Electra that Orestes found Aegisthus right before he made a scarifies to the gods. Orestes was invited to watch the scarifies and was able to kill Aegisthus with his own knife once it was finished.
After the messenger finishes relaying the story, Orestes returns and begins having doubts about killing Clytemnestra. Electra convinces him to hold his resolve. Clytemnestra arrives to Electra’s house under the belief that Electra is with child. When she realizes that her children are about to murder her, she begs for her life. Electra taunts her and takes her inside with Orestes. From inside the house, Clytemnestra’s murder is heard. When Orestes and Electra remerge, they both feel extreme amounts of guilt. Electra admits to half of the responsibility, even going as far as to say she held the sword with Orestes as they shoved it down their mother’s throat.
In a deus ex machine moment, Clytemnestra’s brother’s Castor and Polydeuces appear. They blame Apollo for convincing Orestes to avenge his father’s death. They instruct Electra to marry Pylades and for Orestes to go to Athens where he must await trial.
This ending shows two distinct differences from any other telling of the myth. The first, is that Electra is directly involved and held responsible for Clytemnestra’s murder and the second is that the mortality of the matricide is brought into serious question through the guilt of the children. While some scholars may argue that both Sophocles and Aeschylus’ versions deal with the morality and guilt of the matricide and revenge, Euripides’ version is far more ambiguous.