Betrayal and revenge

For years thereafter, Electra mourned the death of her father and vowed to avenge his murder. When Orestes reached manhood, he heard about how his father had been killed, so he set off with his cousin and friend Pylades for Mycenae. When the two men reached the royal palace, they disguised themselves as travelers to gain entry. They also claimed to be carrying the ashes of the dead Orestes in an urn.

Some legends have it that, although Electra was upset at hearing the rumor of Orestes’ death, she resolved to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus herself. Before she could act, however, Orestes and Pylades secretly revealed to her their

The phrase Electra complex is closely associated with famous Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), although he did not use the term himself. Essentially the Electra complex is the female equivalent of what Freud called the Oedipus complex. In Greek mythology Oedipus, without realizing his true parentage, slew his father and married his mother—a metaphor, Freud believed, for a common phase of human emotional development, typically between the ages of three to five, when a child experiences a strong bond with or even sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex and an equally strong sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex. According to Freud, in emotionally healthy people, the phase ends once the child identifies with the parent of the same sex. The Electra complex is a way of explaining why some girls are closer to their fathers than their mothers.

True identities, and together they plotted their crime. First Orestes killed Clytemnestra by stabbing her, and, depending on the account told, Electra either encouraged him or helped him stab their mother a second time. They then showed Aegisthus Clytemnestra’s body before executing him too. Another version has it that Orestes and Pylades killed Aegisthus before stabbing Clytemnestra to death.

Orestes rewarded Pylades for his help by giving him Electra to wed. Once married, Electra and Pylades moved to Phocis, where they had two sons, Medon and Strophius.