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Contents
The center of the play. She has refused to accept her father's murder as settled history, and that refusal has made her an outcast in her own home. She is fierce, exhausting, and right. Her arc moves from isolated grief to desperate action to sudden relief to cold purpose.
Electra's brother, returned from exile to carry out the revenge. He is strategic where she is emotional. He plans the deception, executes the killings, and has to keep pulling Electra back from falling apart at the wrong moment.
Electra's mother and Agamemnon's killer. She is not a simple villain. She has a real grievance: Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia. Her complicated response to the false news of Orestes' death shows she still feels something, even if she has buried it.
Electra's sister. She chooses accommodation over resistance. She is not weak, she is practical. Sophocles uses her to show what a reasonable person does in an impossible situation, which makes Electra's choice look more extreme and more deliberate.
Orestes' old guardian and the architect of the deception plan. He delivers the false report of Orestes' death with convincing detail. He also keeps the plan on track when emotion threatens to derail it, warning the siblings to move before they are seen.
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