Her name sounds like a negative adjective: “alektra” in Greek means “bedless, unwed, unmarriageable.” Her life is a stopped and stranded thing, just a glitch in other people’s plans. Her function and meaning as a human have been reduced to one activity—saying no to everything around her. No to her father’s murder at the hands of her mother, no to her mother’s adultery with Aigisthos, no to going on with her life as if nothing were wrong, no to breaking off her lament.
