Electra after Freud

Viac o knihe

Electra's story is a gripping tale of murder, revenge, and violence. In the myth of Atreus, Agamemnon returns from battle only to be murdered in his bath by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus. Electra, choosing anger over sorrow, is determined to make her mother pay. With her brother's help, she orchestrates a brutal matricide, restoring her father's good name. Amid this turmoil, Electra, Agamemnon's daughter, endures the humiliation of being treated as a slave and labeled a madwoman. While many are familiar with Oedipus and his mother, Jill Scott shifts focus to the countermyth of Agamemnon and Electra, arguing for its significance in Western mythology. Through Freudian and feminist psychoanalysis, she examines the Electra myth's representations in twentieth-century literature and culture. Scott highlights a "narrative revolt" against Oedipus as the dominant archetype. By situating the Electra myth within psychoanalysis, medicine, opera, and dance, she explores the heroine's role at the intersections of history, femininity, eros, thanatos, hysteria, and melancholia. Analyzing adaptations by H.D., Hofmannsthal and Strauss, Musil, and Plath, Scott reveals key moments in the modern reception of the Electra myth.