Summary
A mother and a daughter – what a terrible combination of feelings and confusion and destruction! … The mother's injuries are to be handed down to the daughter, the mother's disappointments are to be paid for by the daughter, the mother's unhappiness is to be the daughter's unhappiness. It's as if the umbilical cord had never been cut. The daughter's misfortune is the mother's triumph, the daughter's grief is the mother's secret pleasure.
Ingmar Bergman, Autumn SonataHelping friends and harming enemies
Electra presents us with a world in which Help Friends/Harm Enemies remains unquestioned. In the prologue Orestes announces his intention ‘to shine out like a star against my enemies’ (66), and when he reappears, declares that he will stop his laughing enemies in their tracks (1295). Electra expresses similar sentiments (453–6, 979f.), and makes loyalty to friends a cardinal principle (345f., 367f., 395). Like Orestes, she assumes that their enemies are indulging in hostile mockery (277, 807, 1153). Clytemnestra prays that if her dream is hostile it may recoil on her enemies, and that she may enjoy prosperity with her present friends (647, 652f.). The chorus console Electra with the assurance that Orestes is ‘noble (esthlos), so as to help his friends’ (322), and their general approval of Electra's values is clear from their praise and sympathy. When they advise her to moderate her hatred, they are thinking of her welfare, and add that she should not forget it entirely (177f.).
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- Helping Friends and Harming EnemiesA Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics, pp. 149 - 183Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989