In the Prison House of Myth and Culture: Rereading The Attrides
"Goodness is possible in every type of personage, even in woman or slave." Thus spoke Aristotle in his Poetics about women. What makes the statement surprising is that, not quite aligned with what Aristotle says, the Athenian stage was full of impressive female personalities, women who possessed the ability to challenge male authority and oppression. Many of them were committed to higher values and ready to sacrifice themselves in order to remain loyal to what they respected or valued most. Others had the will and determination to fight back at all cost. The purpose of this paper is to show how Ellen MacLaughlin re-contextualizes and re-historicizes the performative potential of four classical heroines, four totally different female personalities, Iphigenia, Electra, Chrysothemis and Clytemnestra (in her trilogy Iphigenia and Other Daughters, 2005) to enhance their relevance to contemporary gender concerns and thus strengthen their general appeal to postmodern audiences' aesthetic and ideological expectations.
