Who kills Clytemnestra in Electra?

Orestes kills Clytemnestra. He returns secretly with Pylades, enters the palace on a pretext, and strikes after the trap against Aegisthus succeeds. Electra urges him on — famously encouraging him not to hesitate at the final moment — but the physical matricide is Orestes’ act under divine mandate.

Sophocles separates Electra’s passionate hatred from the executor’s hand, yet the play implicates the whole sibling pair in the house’s cleansing. Students comparing this play to Euripides’ Electra should note Sophocles’ tighter focus on recognition and duty rather than moral debate on the spot. The killing closes the vengeance arc opened when Agamemnon died; what follows in the trilogy tradition belongs to further plays, but here the mother’s death is Orestes’ completed task.