Hovering "Between Wild and Tame": The Role of Women in "Elektra"
Posted by Cait Robinson, Publications Fellow L to R: Caroline Lagerfelt as Clytemnestra and René Augesen as Elektra in Sophocles' Elektra. Photo by Kevin Berne. Elektra continues through November 18. Learn more about the production and order tickets . To understand the role of women in Elektra , it is valuable to consider the classical concept of feminity. The Greeks viewed women ambiguously: though responsible for bearing children and propogating the human race, they were also descendents of Pandora and therefore members of a separate "race of women," less physically and mentally capable than men. Women were also considered more sexually voracious and predisposed to infidelity, naturally threatening to the order of the household, or oikos , which was their domain. Many texts from antiquity compare women to domesticated dogs—though they serve man and share his household, they forever hover between wild and tamed. Athenians were preoccupied with dividing wom...