Including the three children left to her. So obsessed is she with her loss and her plot for vengeance that she can see nothing else. Clytemnestra is shocked, appalled, devastated by the suddenness and cruelty of the loss, and yearns for nothing more than Agamemnon’s safe return from Troy. Including the eldest daughter he so callously sacrifices to the gods in exchange for a fair wind to sail his ships to Troy. Which brings us to our second perspective character, Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon and mother of his children. “The shriek of agony in our souls, that could only be soothed by one thing. She would do literally anything for her father and her king, up to and including allowing herself to be sacrificed to the gods if he requested it of her. Because she was so young when he left for Troy, she has idolized him in such a way as to propel him into near godlike status in her mind and heart. Her devotion is religious, and almost even romantic in nature. Youngest daughter of Agamemnon, the king of all Greek kings, Elektra is fiercely loyal to her father, and yearns for nothing more than his safe return from Troy.

Elektra, our title character, actually felt like the least important of the three, though she is the last woman standing. Our story is told from three perspectives. “To be surprised, you had to have a belief that the world would follow its rhythms and patterns as it had always done.” And, most of all, it hammers home the saying “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” What the two have in common, and what I like the most about them outside of their setting and status as Greek retellings, is a distinctly feminist take on historically masculine stories. It speaks of obsession, and how that obsession can skew one’s views of events. This novel, however, speaks of violence begetting more violence, of revenge being cyclical and all-consuming and never as fulfilling as one hopes. Ariadne did bring forth the plight of women in the ancient world, and demonstrate that heroes often come with a dark side, but that was about it. “Can’t you see that it just goes on, over and over? The gods demand their justice, but we suffer for it, every time.”Įlektra had a much clearer message than Saint’s debut novel, Ariadne. But what of those left behind, those doomed to pick up the pieces in the aftermath? What of those stepped on and over by these so-called heroes on their path to glory? What of their “prizes,” those they claim as trophies after their victories? In other words, what of the women? Even the more heroic epics, such as The Iliad, often see the heroes victorious but slain among their enemies. Nothing reeks of trauma and death and shattered dreams quite like a Greek tragedy.

Elektra saint