Reconstructing Rome: Vespasian in the Capitolium | The Peripatetic View of the Passions | Blood, Guts, and Laughter: Dark Humour in Statius' Thebaid V | Lucretius and the Conquest of Emotion | Transforming Relationships through Emotional Expression in Sophocles' Electra | Brutalized Bodies and Broken Categories in Catullus 8 and 40

Transforming Relationships through Emotional Expression in Sophocles' Electra

    According to Aristotle's Rhetoric, pity is a pain felt at the sight of another person's undeserved suffering, the persons involved being unrelated (Rh. 2.8, 1386a7-11, 1385b13-16). This definition is clearly applicable to many expressions of pity found in tragedy and other genres of classical Greek literature. Sophocles' Electra, however, provides us with a unique and variant dynamic of pity that contradicts the relationship assumed between persons by Aristotle. In the course of the recognition scene, Orestes chides himself for not recognizing his own sorrows when he discovers that the woman he speaks with is his sister (El. 1185) and when he shares how long he has pitied her, Electra asks if he is a relative (zungenes El. 1202). Both statements suggest that the pains of pity are not only felt by members of the same family but indicate a certain type of relationship.
    This closeness expressed at a highly emotional moment can also be found in Electra's greeting to the Tutor. Upon learning who he is, Electra is overcome with joy, kissing his hands and feet and calling him father (El. 1354-63). To J.H. Kells, this 'sinister delusion' indicates Electra's digression into madness but to Jenny March, these words express Electra's 'deepest affection' for the Tutor. Regardless of how we understand Electra's mental state, her intense feelings of joy lead her to re-imagine the Tutor as a familial figure, and one, in fact, that she has devotedly mourned throughout the play. This paper will pay close attention to the transformation of several relationships in Sophocles' Electra instigated by the emotional experience of its characters in order to better understand the assumptions and expectations of interpersonal feelings in classical Greek literature.