Electra

Electra moves alone among the black-robed libation bearers, her cheek ploughed red and her tresses torn, the visible wound of a house broken in two. When she finds a shorn tress on the tomb, she half-dares to believe her brother has come, yet refuses to look too closely for fear of being mocked by hope. Urged by the Chorus not to hesitate, she nerves herself to use her mother's peace-offerings as an appeal to the dead—deliberately telling her father the things that will sting him awake. She is the play's raw nerve, the sister whose refusal to be comforted keeps the vengeance honest.