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Lines 516-822
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Electra, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Grief, Mourning, and Morality
Justice and Revenge
Gender and Society
Deception, Falsehood, and Trust
Summary
Analysis
Electra continues to wail as the chorus wonders where Zeus is and why he isn’t intervening. The chorus begs Electra to stop crying, but it does little good; she’s convinced that she has nothing more to hope for now that Orestes is dead. The chorus reminds Electra that everyone dies sooner or later, but Electra already knows this all too well. So, she begins to mourn Orestes as well.
This moment is further evidence of Electra’s deep grief and mourning, but it also suggests that her pain is upending her moral compass. Electra’s words imply that her sadness over Orestes’s death is mainly due to the fact that she had hoped he kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, causing the kind of senseless death (of a parent, no less) that Electra has previously said she abhors.
Themes
