American playwright Eugene O‘ Neill‘s ―Mourning Becomes Electra‖ is a continuation of the Greek
tradition. It is rare to find two principal complexes ―Electra‖ and ―Oedipus‖ in one work of art. Here we
have both as parallel themes. The tragic implications as will be observed are of the kind that generates
emotions of purgation and emotional relief. However, it‘s set in a modern (20th century) milieu. The
characterization, the story line, the plot are all reflective of the ancient traditions. The names and sequence
have been modified to serve the playwright‘s intentionality. The substitution is shown with the main
characters resembling the principal dramatis personae of the past: Lavinia Mannon – Electra; Christine
Mannon – Clytemnestra; Ezra Mannon – Agamemnon; Captain Adam Brant – Aegisthus; Orin Mannon –
Orestes; Captain Peter Niles – Pylades. Instead of the Trojan War, here in the background we have the
American Civil War. Clytemnestra had waited for ten years for her husband to return from the conflict.
Although she had governed well, she had committed the mistake of taking on a lover in the form of
Aegisthus. With him she had conspired to put to death her hero husband.
In the play under review, it is Christine who has cuckolded Ezra Mannon. Christine is far more venomous
than Clytemnestra. Whereas the latter had some grievance because her spouse had sacrificed their daughter
Iphigeneia to please the gods; Christine had no such anger to be redressed. For her it was a simple case of
husband change. Having got bored or fed up with one Patriarch, she wanted to experience the ecstasy of
love. Up to this point the story may be taken as a recasting of the Greek myth. What happens ahead is
O‘Neill‘s own interpretation. In this case the daughter Lavinia too is in love with the mother‘s paramour and
hence an opponent.
There is a strong psychoanalytical stance as the daughter is expressively preoccupied with ―Electra‖
complex. She is consumed by love for father and is obsessively involved in revenge for his death. Christine
is sly and malicious and she plans the murder in a cunning manner. Knowing that the husband has a heart
condition, she lets it be known in the public about the gravity of his ailment. Meanwhile she conspires with
Brant to make sure that the plans do not prove abortive. She asks for poison with the stratagem being that on
his return she would copulate with him and in a fit of frenzy make him suffer from an induced heart attack.
It happens as planned and when Ezra asks for his medicine, she gives him the poison. Consequently he dies,
only to give birth to a series of violent revenge killings. When the brother Orin returns from the war, the
sister Lavinia manoeuvres him in a situation where he kills Brant. Before he does so, the reader/audience has
to undergo the sordid experience of yet another psychological aberration, in the form of incestuous
relationship between mother and son. Thus the killing of Brant serves three purposes; the father is avenged,
the mother is punished and the rival is eliminated. The cursed house of Atreus (Mannon) suffers multiple
moral lapses. There is incest between the brother and sister.
In all the tragic happenings, it is Lavinia who is the prime factor of personality shortcomings. She would
neither like her brother to have a normal relationship with Hazel nor allow herself to have ties with Captain
Peter Niles. In the end, she drives Orin to madness and suicide just as she had driven her mother to
frustration and suicide. Finally she draws the curtains on her own self and opts for the life of a recluse. A
mood of tragedy prevails over the entire unfolding of the dramatic sequences. All the characters yearn for
respite and redemption but there is none. The most pitiable individual is the mother Christine who one feels
deserves a break from the monotony and misery of a star-crossed marriage. It is in her death that the
audience reach the climax of tragic empathy. The therapeutic effect is felt as the viewer is shocked into a
trance like state of cataclysm.
No play is ever written with a critical theory in mind. The creative writer doesn‘t adopt a framework within
which he has to put together his ideas. Such an attitude would place a severe restriction on his literary
creation. Once the intended piece of literature takes a final shape and comes in the public domain, it is then
that literary criticism and appreciation is applied. So is it with Mourning Becomes Electra. O‘Neill is a
master craftsman but in this play it so appears that he was writing within the psychological and
psychoanalytical framework. The play opens with ordinary people gossiping about the extra marital affairs
of Christine, wife of Ezra Mannon. This is a Freudian start as sex is the base of human emotions. We come
across the servant/gardener Seth who has the role of chorus of the old Greek tragedy. His comments are in
the psychoanalytical tradition as he gives a free narration of the past, present and the future of the Mannon
family.
The play ―Mourning Becomes Electra‖ has much in common with the grand style of ancient Greek tragedy.
It is the suffering of human beings that results in an ennobling effect. The characters have complex
psychological hang-ups which contribute towards their doom. On the Greek pattern we have a trilogy with
three parts: The Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted. Whereas in the Greek cases, the
psychological aspect is disguised and barely identifiable, in O‘Neill it constitutes the essence of drama.
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