Mourning Becomes Electra as a Modern Tragedy
Mourning Becomes Electra is one of O’Neill’s most grandiose creations based on his experiments with modern forms of tragedy. The play is a monumental revision and adaptation of Aeschylus’s ‘Oresteia’. This most ambitious work of O’Neill is an attempt to find a modern analogue to an ancient mode of experience. As a critic remarks, “The play aims to provide modern psychological approximation of the Greek sense of fate in time in which the notion of an escapable and fundamentally non-redemptive determinism is incomprehensible”. The play is a tale of a family torn apart by the past, present and future, psychological drives and jealousies. The play’s Greek roots and Freudian branches twist together into a gripping knot of jealousy, love, hate, betrayal, murder, suicide, justice, incest and fate from which the characters are powerless to extricate themselves. As a matter of fact, O’Neill, through recasting of Greek myth, presents American History and Freudian Psychology to show the self-destruction of an American family in New England at the end of American civil war. Being modern, O’Neill explores the psychological implications of tragedy far more than the Greeks did.
Before discussing the play as a tragedy and its similarities and departures from classical cannons, we must analyze how O’Neill recasts Greek Oresteia by substituting Greek personae and places with American ones. Here in Mourning Becomes Electra Ezra Mannon replaces Agamemnon, Livinia replaces Electra, Christine replaces Clytemnestra, Brant replaces Aegisthus, Orin replaces Orestes, Peter Niles replaces Pylades, servants like Seth replace chorus. American civil war replaces Trojan War. Even the roles and actions assigned to American personae are quite similar to those of the Greek. Ezra like Agamemnon is Patriarch, the head of the family who not only protects his family but also serves his nation. He enjoys gender and phallic supremacy and stands like a majestic tree under whose impregnable shade all of his wards grow stuntedly and dwarfishly. Both the modern and ancient Patriarchs overcome their enemies but are eliminated by their beloveds. Christine like Clytemnestra cuckolds her warring husband in his absence and develops liaison with Brant. Unlike Clytemnestra, boredom and confinement more than any personal loss account for Christine’s infidelity. Orin of Mourning Becomes Electra, like Orestes is gullied by Lavinia, the Electra, to avenge the murder of her father. Orin suffers from Oedipus complex and kills himself rather succumbs to grief caused by his mother’s death. Most importantly Lavinia, like Electra, loves her father, kills her mother in revenge, and finally confines herself in the Mannon house which is the common and colossal grave of the Mannons. Even O’Neill’s play features the Greek themes such as adultery, incest, murder, suicide, revenge, jealousies and madness.
Now we try to gauge Mourning Becomes Electra with reference to classical criterion and concept of tragedy. No doubt, the play displays certain distinct similarities and disparities with classic canons of tragedy. To talk about any modern play as a tragedy is to immediately enter into muddy waters. No modern play measures up to the classical standard of tragedy set by Aeschylus and defined by Aristotle. Quite ironically modern tragic plays evolve their identity more through their departures than their similarities with the classical models. We can enumerate the points of both concord and disagreement in this play with classical tragedies as follows.
Firstly, the play Mourning Becomes Electra does not conform to the classical concept of structure of a tragedy. The structure which Aristotle defines for a tragedy does not apply to this play or any modern play.
Secondly, in this play, there are not present any gods controlling, making and marring human destiny. In this play we cannot hear the echoes of ‘Lear’s cry’,
‘As flies to wanton boys are we to gods
They kill us for their sport’
Thirdly, fate, the chief cause of tragedy in classical tragedy has been substituted by such causes of tragedy as heredity, environment and social and psychological forces. It is true that these forces are as irreversible and uncontrollable in modern times as fate was in the modern times. Mourning Becomes Electra is a tragedy of a family ravaged by inherited curse and stifling demands of Puritanism.
Fourthly, the play does not comply with the Aristotelian concepts of tragic hero and Hamartia. In O’Neill’s world, “Tragic characters are far below the stature of Aristotelian tragic hero though Ezra Mannon is an exception”. Ezra is the only tragic figure who measures up to classical standards. He is a man of national importance and status. His fall is not as huge as that of Oedipus yet significant enough to be called tragic.
Fifthly, the classical concept of Hamartia does not apply to tragic figures in O’Neill’s world. Here the tragic flaw is more hereditary and societal than personal, though the fall is almost as shocking as in a classical tragedy. Here man falls through the causes that lie either in the past or in the social and the environmental conventions. About the tragic fall in Mourning Becomes Electra, Schophen Hauer ‘s sense of tragedy can be aptly applied when he says, “It is not his own individual sins the hero atones for, but original sin i.e. the crime of existence itself”.
Finally and most significantly, O’Neill is a tragedian whose tragic tone is distinctly modern and whose tragedies represent a modern shift of emphasis from a fatalistic view of destiny to a naturalistic and humanistic view. Here tragic conflict is not conceived in terms of gods and man as among the Greek or the devil and god as in medieval drama rather in psychological terms of the conscious and the unconscious. O’Neill shows how man becomes the victim of his own psychological drives. In Mourning Becomes Electra, the idea of pride and humility runs as the leitmotif. A lofty sense of pride can inspire man to ideals greater than the self and this over-whelming pride becomes his nemesis. The pride of the elder Mannons continues to haunt the younger generation, “the biological past creates the present”. Unlike the Greek here the curse is self-pronounced and the nemesis is self-bred. Seized by their neurotic mania the Mannons continue the process of self-cursing and self-killing. After the suicide of Christine, Orin suggests that Lavinia should kill him. “Can’t you see I’m in father’s place and you’re mother? That’s the evil destiny out the past”. Similarly Lavinia utters, I’m the last Mannon. I’ve got to punish myself”.
Before summing up our discussion, we should quote some critics who have very harsh views about this play. They declare the play as one of white elephants of American dramatic history. Even its creation has been called as one of ironies in career of O’Neill. They claim that the play lacks the great dialogue of tragedy. It fails as a tragedy because it presents over-simplified view of characters who are entirely motivated by Freudian complexes which O’Neill substitutes for the Greek idea of fate. Even a critic calls the play “A thirteen act monstrosity”.
On the other hand majority of the critics applaud the play as one of finest modern tragedies. Joseph Wood Crutch seems most eloquent in his praise for the play. He remarks “Mourning Becomes Electra has all virtues which one expects in the best of contemporary writings”. Even he ranks it along with great tragedies like Oedipus, Hamlet and Macbeth. This O’Neillean creation shows how human beings are great and terrible creatures when they are in the grip of great passions and the spectacle of them is not only absorbing but also at once horrible and cleansing. As the play deals with the dark psychology of characters, their hidden emotions, fears and deprivations embedded in the subconscious, unfulfilled desired, bleak grudges and revenge motifs. O’Neill’s own words are best elaboration of the play as a tragedy, “Mourning Becomes Electra is a modern tragic interpretation of classic fate without benefits of gods……. fate springing out of the family”.
Mourning Becomes Electra is one of O’Neill’s most grandiose creations based on his experiments with modern forms of tragedy. The play is a monumental revision and adaptation of Aeschylus’s ‘Oresteia’. This most ambitious work of O’Neill is an attempt to find a modern analogue to an ancient mode of experience. As a critic remarks, “The play aims to provide modern psychological approximation of the Greek sense of fate in time in which the notion of an escapable and fundamentally non-redemptive determinism is incomprehensible”. The play is a tale of a family torn apart by the past, present and future, psychological drives and jealousies. The play’s Greek roots and Freudian branches twist together into a gripping knot of jealousy, love, hate, betrayal, murder, suicide, justice, incest and fate from which the characters are powerless to extricate themselves. As a matter of fact, O’Neill, through recasting of Greek myth, presents American History and Freudian Psychology to show the self-destruction of an American family in New England at the end of American civil war. Being modern, O’Neill explores the psychological implications of tragedy far more than the Greeks did.
Before discussing the play as a tragedy and its similarities and departures from classical cannons, we must analyze how O’Neill recasts Greek Oresteia by substituting Greek personae and places with American ones. Here in Mourning Becomes Electra Ezra Mannon replaces Agamemnon, Livinia replaces Electra, Christine replaces Clytemnestra, Brant replaces Aegisthus, Orin replaces Orestes, Peter Niles replaces Pylades, servants like Seth replace chorus. American civil war replaces Trojan War. Even the roles and actions assigned to American personae are quite similar to those of the Greek. Ezra like Agamemnon is Patriarch, the head of the family who not only protects his family but also serves his nation. He enjoys gender and phallic supremacy and stands like a majestic tree under whose impregnable shade all of his wards grow stuntedly and dwarfishly. Both the modern and ancient Patriarchs overcome their enemies but are eliminated by their beloveds. Christine like Clytemnestra cuckolds her warring husband in his absence and develops liaison with Brant. Unlike Clytemnestra, boredom and confinement more than any personal loss account for Christine’s infidelity. Orin of Mourning Becomes Electra, like Orestes is gullied by Lavinia, the Electra, to avenge the murder of her father. Orin suffers from Oedipus complex and kills himself rather succumbs to grief caused by his mother’s death. Most importantly Lavinia, like Electra, loves her father, kills her mother in revenge, and finally confines herself in the Mannon house which is the common and colossal grave of the Mannons. Even O’Neill’s play features the Greek themes such as adultery, incest, murder, suicide, revenge, jealousies and madness.
Now we try to gauge Mourning Becomes Electra with reference to classical criterion and concept of tragedy. No doubt, the play displays certain distinct similarities and disparities with classic canons of tragedy. To talk about any modern play as a tragedy is to immediately enter into muddy waters. No modern play measures up to the classical standard of tragedy set by Aeschylus and defined by Aristotle. Quite ironically modern tragic plays evolve their identity more through their departures than their similarities with the classical models. We can enumerate the points of both concord and disagreement in this play with classical tragedies as follows.
Firstly, the play Mourning Becomes Electra does not conform to the classical concept of structure of a tragedy. The structure which Aristotle defines for a tragedy does not apply to this play or any modern play.
Secondly, in this play, there are not present any gods controlling, making and marring human destiny. In this play we cannot hear the echoes of ‘Lear’s cry’,
‘As flies to wanton boys are we to gods
They kill us for their sport’
Thirdly, fate, the chief cause of tragedy in classical tragedy has been substituted by such causes of tragedy as heredity, environment and social and psychological forces. It is true that these forces are as irreversible and uncontrollable in modern times as fate was in the modern times. Mourning Becomes Electra is a tragedy of a family ravaged by inherited curse and stifling demands of Puritanism.
Fourthly, the play does not comply with the Aristotelian concepts of tragic hero and Hamartia. In O’Neill’s world, “Tragic characters are far below the stature of Aristotelian tragic hero though Ezra Mannon is an exception”. Ezra is the only tragic figure who measures up to classical standards. He is a man of national importance and status. His fall is not as huge as that of Oedipus yet significant enough to be called tragic.
Fifthly, the classical concept of Hamartia does not apply to tragic figures in O’Neill’s world. Here the tragic flaw is more hereditary and societal than personal, though the fall is almost as shocking as in a classical tragedy. Here man falls through the causes that lie either in the past or in the social and the environmental conventions. About the tragic fall in Mourning Becomes Electra, Schophen Hauer ‘s sense of tragedy can be aptly applied when he says, “It is not his own individual sins the hero atones for, but original sin i.e. the crime of existence itself”.
Finally and most significantly, O’Neill is a tragedian whose tragic tone is distinctly modern and whose tragedies represent a modern shift of emphasis from a fatalistic view of destiny to a naturalistic and humanistic view. Here tragic conflict is not conceived in terms of gods and man as among the Greek or the devil and god as in medieval drama rather in psychological terms of the conscious and the unconscious. O’Neill shows how man becomes the victim of his own psychological drives. In Mourning Becomes Electra, the idea of pride and humility runs as the leitmotif. A lofty sense of pride can inspire man to ideals greater than the self and this over-whelming pride becomes his nemesis. The pride of the elder Mannons continues to haunt the younger generation, “the biological past creates the present”. Unlike the Greek here the curse is self-pronounced and the nemesis is self-bred. Seized by their neurotic mania the Mannons continue the process of self-cursing and self-killing. After the suicide of Christine, Orin suggests that Lavinia should kill him. “Can’t you see I’m in father’s place and you’re mother? That’s the evil destiny out the past”. Similarly Lavinia utters, I’m the last Mannon. I’ve got to punish myself”.
Before summing up our discussion, we should quote some critics who have very harsh views about this play. They declare the play as one of white elephants of American dramatic history. Even its creation has been called as one of ironies in career of O’Neill. They claim that the play lacks the great dialogue of tragedy. It fails as a tragedy because it presents over-simplified view of characters who are entirely motivated by Freudian complexes which O’Neill substitutes for the Greek idea of fate. Even a critic calls the play “A thirteen act monstrosity”.
On the other hand majority of the critics applaud the play as one of finest modern tragedies. Joseph Wood Crutch seems most eloquent in his praise for the play. He remarks “Mourning Becomes Electra has all virtues which one expects in the best of contemporary writings”. Even he ranks it along with great tragedies like Oedipus, Hamlet and Macbeth. This O’Neillean creation shows how human beings are great and terrible creatures when they are in the grip of great passions and the spectacle of them is not only absorbing but also at once horrible and cleansing. As the play deals with the dark psychology of characters, their hidden emotions, fears and deprivations embedded in the subconscious, unfulfilled desired, bleak grudges and revenge motifs. O’Neill’s own words are best elaboration of the play as a tragedy, “Mourning Becomes Electra is a modern tragic interpretation of classic fate without benefits of gods……. fate springing out of the family”.
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