Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill

Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill

Mourning Becomes Electra is a play written by American playwright Eugene O’Neill. This is the only play which has contained both the complexes: Oedipus and Electra complexes.

The story is a retelling of the Oresteia by Aeschylus. The characters parallel characters from the ancient Greek play. For example, Agamemnon from the Oresteia becomes General Ezra Mannon. Clytemnestra becomes Christine, Orestes becomes Orin, Electra becomes Lavinia, Aegisthus becomes Adam Brant, etc. As a Greek tragedy made modern, the play features murder, adultery, incestuous love and revenge, and even a group of townspeople who function as a kind of Greek chorus. Though fate alone guides character’s action in Greek tragedies, O’Neill’s characters’ actions in Greek tragedies, and O’Neill’s motivations grounded in 1930s-era psychological theory as well. The play can easily be read from a Freudian perspective, paying attention to various characters’ Oedipus complexes and Electra complexes.

Mourning Becomes Electra is divided into three plays with themes that correspond to the Oresteia trilogy. Much like Aeschylus’ plays Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides, these three plays by O’Neil are titled Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted. Each of these plays contains four to five acts, with only the first act of The Haunted being divided into actual scenes, and so Mourning Becomes Electra is astonishingly lengthy for a drama. In production, it is often cut down. Also, because of the large cast size, it is not performed as often as some of O’Neill’s other major plays. (Wikipedia)