COURSE:M.A ENGLISH
SEMESTER:3
BATCH:2016-2018
ENROLMENT NO- 2069108420170010
SUBMITTED TO – Dr. Dilip Barad
SMT .S.B.GAEDI
SMT .S.B.GAEDI
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
MAHARAJA KRISHNAKUMARSINHJI BHAVNAGER UNIVERSITY
PARER NO-10 The American literature.
TOPIC:” Morning Become Electra” as a Greek tragedy.
Introduction:
" Mourning Becomes Electra" is considered O'Neill's most ambitious work. In the play, he adapts the Greek tragic myth Oresteia to nineteenth-century New England. Generally, critics praised the play as one of O'Neill's best. Even though performances ran almost six hours long, audiences seemed to agree; it ran for 150 performances.
Like Oresteia,O'Neill's play features themes of fate, revenge, hubris, adultery, and honor.
"Mourning Becomes Electra" based on the use of the 'Greek Myths'. Set in a modern milieu, the plot, the characterization, and the story-line are all reflective of the ancient traditions.
Like Oresteia,O'Neill's play features themes of fate, revenge, hubris, adultery, and honor.
"Mourning Becomes Electra" based on the use of the 'Greek Myths'. Set in a modern milieu, the plot, the characterization, and the story-line are all reflective of the ancient traditions.
'Mourning becomes Electra' is a tale of ancient hatreds, illegitimacy, revenge, family secrets and murder.
As per the title :” Mourning Becomes Electra” Mourning means :The 'expression' of 'sorrow' for someone’s'death',
Grief ,
lament,
lamentationBlack clothes worn as an expression of sorrow when someone dies.
“Electra” means : Sparkling , the fairy sun “Becomes “ in the sense of “befits” Electra to mourn- it is her fate Mourning (Black) (sorrow) is becoming to her, it is the only color that becomes her destiny.
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.
“Electra” means : Sparkling , the fairy sun “Becomes “ in the sense of “befits” Electra to mourn- it is her fate Mourning (Black) (sorrow) is becoming to her, it is the only color that becomes her destiny.
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.
The characterization, the story line, the plot are all reflective of the ancient traditions.
If compare Greek and American tragedies, there are several similarities and difference in characters and situations.
How retelling story from Greek to American .
Let’s see,
Greek | American |
Oresteia | Mourning Becomes Electra |
Aeschylus | Eugene O’Neill |
1 Agamemnon | 1 Home Coming |
2 The Libation Bearers | 2 The Hunted |
3 The Eumenides | 3 The Haunted |
Agamemnon | Ezra Pound |
Clytemnestra | Christine |
Orestes | Orin |
Electra | Lavinia |
Adam Brant | Aegisthus |
Trojan War | American Civil War |
Explanation of Greek myth’s:
Atreus and Thyestes both brothers after founding the thyestes is has an affair with his wife, is aerope he decided to take revenge. he invited thyestes for a dinner, after having dinner after having dinner atreus informed thyestes that he has killed and cooked his two sons. and serve to him.
Thyestes becomes angry and cost atreus. He wanted to take revenge for his sons murders, as it was awaken he made a relationship with his own daughter pelopia. and they have son aegisthus for getting Revenge aegisthus murder atreus.
Atreus two sons menelaus and agamemmon and menelaus has married to most beautiful lady helen and agamemmon to clytemnestra. Helen's sisters, when helen was carried away by Prince of troy parish by agamemnon promise menelaus to fight for this, and this war non as a trojan war.
Agamemnon has three children daughters iphiginia and electra and one son orestes. Agamemnan sacrifice iphiginia to get feribal wind while selling for wind clytemnestra became angry for this in absence of agamemmna clytemnestra and aegisthus started love affair. When agamememnon came back from war.
Revenge motifs clytemnestra and aegisthus murder him and got the thrown. Orestes murder aegisthus and his mother clytemnestra after orestes horrifia fury with help of goddess Athena this course was ended from the house of family of atreus . it is very clear to state that the mythical story is full of blood shed, when she end friludility most of member of family is kill by own blood relative.
Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra is a modern adaptation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy, transposed from Agamemnon’s return to Argos from the Trojan War to Ezra Mannon’s return to the Mannon House in a New England town after the American Civil War. Trojan War as the background of Aeschylus’ play lends a sense of doom and pre-destination to it.
O’ Neill chooses the American Civil War as the historical background for his adaptation, because the war possesses “sufficient mask for time and space and New England as the place of action, because of its “Puritan conviction of man born to sin and punishment”.
O’ Neill understands his exercises in tragedy as an attempt to find a modern analogue to the ancient mode of experience. Accordingly, the American Civil War springs from O’Neill’s attempt to negotiate the chasm between ancient and modern.
But war in Mourning Becomes Electra emerges as a thematic essence. The play starts at a moment when the external war is over. But Civil War contributes to the diegesis of the play. External war contributes to dramatic action. External war is given here internal, esoteric dimension. As the backdrop of this play First Civil War of 1865 is primarily a political war, but simultaneously it is also a cultural war waged by the people living within the taboos of Puritan society. They were tired, so they tried to establish an antithetical place to Puritanism. Patriarchy is a bifurcation of Puritanism. So, there is also protest against it by women. This is integrated with Civil War therefore war is not only without but also within.
In this poignant tragedy O’ Neill attempts to interpret the old Greek story of Oresteia in Freudian terms, and presents it with the theatrical devices and styles of 20th century expressionism.
Apart from the Civil War he presents in this play two other levels of war: war between different individuals, that is, intra-individual war; and war within different disparate incongruous antithetical elements inside human psyche. One kind of war is not separate from other. Individuals in the play are always engaged in war with each other. Being driven by the urge to take revenge on the Mannon family, Adam Brant in association with Christine murders Ezra Mannon.
Orin kills Brant to possess his mother and to take revenge of his father’s death. Lavinia drives Christine and Orin to suicide in order to take revenge of her father’s death. Lavinia herself is so much in love for Brant that she detects mother’s love affair. This is a reversal of the normal mother detecting on her daughter.
Therefore, mother-daughter rivalry intensifies. Here, women always fight to get possession of the men, which is a reversal of the earlier tragedies, and daughter wins all the battles.
"morning Become Electra" is a dark tragedy featuring adultery, incest, murder, suicide, revenge, madness. As the play opens, Ezra Mannon returns from the war, only to be poisoned by his adulterous wife, Christine. His daughter Lavinia and son Orin avenge their father's death by killing their mother's lover. The mother, Christine, commits suicide. Orin later also takes his own life. Lavinia shuts herself up in the house, with the memories of her dead relatives to haunt her.
Plot is divided in to a three part:
"Homecoming:"
It is late spring afternoon in front of the Mannon house. The master of the house, Brigadier-General Ezra Mannon, is soon to return from war.
In that part , Lavinia appears her mother for adultery and reveals that she followed her mother to New York and saw her kissing to Adam Brant. At that time her mother says that she always loves her son, Orin and Lavinia has always schemed to steal her place. Later Christine proposes to Adam Brant that they will give poison to Ezra and attribute his death to his heart trouble.
" The Hunted"
Peter, Lavinia, and Orin arrive at the house. Orin disappointedly complains of Christine's absence. He jealously asks Lavinia about what she wrote him regarding Brant. Lavinia warns him against believing Christine's lies. Second play is divided into five parts.
In that part Peter, Lavinia and Orin are talking about Christine’s lies. Orin disappointedly complains of his mother’s absence. Lavinia warns him and at that time Christine comes and both mother and son embrace jubilantly.
In that part Orin asks his mother about Brant and then he recounts his wonderful dreams about South Sea Islands.
Here, Lavinia convinces Orin about their mother’s treachery and Orin finally agrees to watch the behavior of Christine and Brant.
After Ezra’s funeral, Lavinia and Orin follow their mother, Christine who goes to meet Brant in East Boston. Orin and Lavinia listen whole conversation of them. Finally in a hurry Orin shoots Brant and make it seem that Brant has been robbed.
Orin and Lavinia come and they revealing that they killed Brant , Christine collapses. After that Christine leaves them and suddenly a shot is heard from Ezra’s study.
" The Haunted"
A year later, Lavinia and Orin return from their trip East. Lavinia's body has lost its military stiffness and she resembles her mother perfectly. Orin has grown dreadfully thin and bears the statue-like attitude of his father. The Haunted is divided in four parts but Act I is divided in two scenes.One year later, Orin and lavinia return from their East trip. Lavinia resembles her mother perfectly and Orin has grown like his father.Lavinia looks like Christine and Peter thinks that it is ghost of Christine. Lavinia approaches him eagerly. Orin jealously mocks her warmth towards Peter. Orin is working at a manuscript in a great work, the Mannon study, he has written a history of the family crimes as a last Mannon.Hazel and peter arrives at Orin’s home and as Orin sees hazel alone, he gives her an envelope and warning her to keep it secret from Lavinia.
She should open it if :
1 Something happens to him or
2 Lavinia tries to marry PeterFinally Orin commits suicide in room.
At the last part of the play after three days Lavinia appears dressed in deep mourning. Finally hazel knows that Lavinia does not marry with Peter. Bitterness in his voice, Lavinia desperately flings herself into his arms crying :“ Take me , Adam!!! “Now she is alone , no Mannon is left there to punish her. She must leave happiness and lives alone in the old house with the ghosts of her ancestors. She throws out the flowers and enters in the dark house alone and shuts the door.
Conclusion:
Eugene O'Neill's late plays usually deal with the revelation of grim, intimate secrets that unfold in the stifling atmosphere of isolated barrooms and family living rooms. Between Mourning Becomes Electra, written in 1931 and considered by the author as a turning point in his career, and A Moon for the Misbegotten, his final play, the characters become more and more isolated in cramped, deserted places.
In this respect, the last period of O'Neill's career illustrates the shift from the religious and social function of Greek tragedy to the emphasis on individual fate that characterizes modern drama.
Finally,” Revenge never Sleep, It Goes on “
Thomas Kyd’s
it can be said that, whereas in classical tragedy war brings a restoration of order and social propriety with the purging of the evil, in a modern tragedy like Mourning Becomes Electra war does not come with any fruitful result of justification.
Works Cited
ford, ox. encyclopedia. 20 10 2017. 20 10 2017 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
(https://miranda.revues.org/1381)
https://miranda.revues.org/1381. 22 10 2017. 22 10 2017 <https://miranda.revues.org/1381>.
(sparknotes)
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sparknotes. 30 10 2017. 30 10 2017 <http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/mourning/summary.html>.
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