81
Canals goes on to note that Cuesta's character is not sufficiently realized to achieve this goal fully.
82
The accumulation of specious evidence in this way recalls the scene in Sophocles's Oedipus between Oedipus, the messenger, and the herdsman. See lines 924-1181 and the corresponding discussion in Ahl, Chapters 6 and 7.
83
See Mérimée (199), Valverde López (21), González Serrano (116), Gómez de Baquero (195), Martinenche (835), anonymous (The Drama 10-11), Morley (xxxv), Starkie (115), Carney (243-44), Cardona and Sobejano (63-64).
84
The interpretation given to the ghost scene in this analysis has another classical parallel in the ending of Sophocles's Philoctetes, in which Heracles's sudden appearance, crucial in convincing Philoctetes to leave for Troy, may simply be Odysseus (who has just departed the stage) in disguise. See lines 1293-471.
85
See González Serrano (115), Gómez de Baquerc, (202-03), Martinenche (835), anonymous (The Drama 10). More recent critics have tended to be the harshest in their judgments of Pantoja.
86
Aegisthus, the cousin of Agamemnon, takes part in the crime in order to avenge the death of his own siblings, who were murdered by Agamemnon's father, Atreus, and served for dinner to Thyestes (the brother of Atreus and father of Aegisthus). For a dramatic account of this gory myth, see Seneca's Thyestes.
87
It should be noted that Freud never endorsed the term «Electra complex» (which was apparently coined by Jung), not because he disagreed with the ideas that it espoused, but because he believed that female desire for the father was adequately described by his own theory of the Oedipus complex. See Freud («Female Sexuality» 229, «An Outline» 194, and «Psychogenesis» 155, note)
88
The difference is that Euripides -and Sophocles, too, as discussed in note 19 above- used skilful dramatic technique to undermine myth, whereas Galdós uses the myth of Electra to subvert theatrical convention.
89
This article is adapted from Chapter 3 of the author's doctoral thesis entitled «Stages of Desire: The Mythological Tradition in Classical and Contemporary Spanish Theater» (Cornell University). The author wishes to express his sincerest thanks to Frederick Ahl of the Department of Classics at Cornell for his congenial and constructive reading of the manuscript.
90
That Galdós referred to his chapter divisions as «actos» and not «jornadas» is another aspect that might easily have confused Smith and De la Nuez.