Mourning Becomes Electra as a Greek tragedy

 

• Name: Malek Hinaben Ibrahimbhai

• Paper no. : 10 The American literature

• Roll no. : 8

• Semester: MA Semester 3

• Year: 2019-21

• Enrollment no. : 2069108420200026

• Email Id: hinamalek21@gmail.com

• Submitted to: Department of English M.K. Bhavnagar University

Topic:Write a critical note Mourning Becomes Electra as a Greek tragedy.

Introduction:

The Electra complex is derived from the 5th century. Sigmund Freud  developed the female aspect of   the sexual development theory described the psycho dynamics of a girl’s sexual possession of father as the feminine Oedipus attitude and the Oedipus complex, yet it was his collaborator Carl Jung who coined the term Electra complex in 1923.

                        O’ Neill has used expressionistic techniques into the play. His plays were very long like epic- dimensions; he has also used poetic devices like soliloquy, mask etc, to convey the sense of overhang fate deriving men to their doom. I think O’ Neill has used different symbolism to communicate with the people and readers. It also gives a broad and universal significance to his theme. Which also related with the religion perspective and also hatred towards relationships which were related with own blood relations. (O'Neill)

Oedipus Complex and its use into the play.

  “The sexual wishes in regard to the Mother become more intense and the Father is perceived as an obstacle to the : this gives rise to the Oedipus Complex”  

                                                                                                      by ……Sigmund Freud

Oedipus Complex is a term used by Sigmund Freud in his theory of the Paychosexual stage of development to his father. A boy feels like he is in competition with his father for possession of his mother because he has some attention and affection towards his Mother.

                                ( Orin  +  Christine )

Oedipus complex is related to psychology but it is also known as the myth which O' Neill has described in his play Mourning becomes Electra’.

                                   Freud was a psychologist and he did many experiments on human psychology. His psychoanalytical work has been of great value. He gave the concept of the Oedipus complex.

                                   Oedipus is a king who unknowingly marries his own mother. It is a play by a Greek playwright Sophocles. Oedipus as a child was sent by his parents to kill because of the misunderstanding that the child would marry to his mother. To avoid this incident this child was to be killed but the child reached somehow to the other king. The child was brought up by the king. The child was not known about his original parents. When he became young he went to his real father’s place, and killed his father and married to his mother.

                            So Freud analysed and    as a result he concluded that father is close to his daughter whereas mother is close to son.

“You're so like your mother in some ways. Your face is the dead image of hers. And look at your hair. You won't meet hair like yours and hers again in a month of Sundays. I only know of one other woman who had it. You'll think it strange when I tell you. It was my mother.”

In India we will find that father loves daughter more than the mother and mother loves more than the daughter to her son. But here we can’t use the Oedipus and Electra complex because it is the love which we will find between the family which lives together.

                                  O’Neill’s symbolism also quiet near to realism

                        “Not masks for all plays conceived in purely realistic terms.”

                             In this play the playwright has used the Electra legend to achieve an appointment to the Greek sense of fate such as would appeal so that it would appear to modern audiences.

      “Before O’Neill, the United States had theatre: after O’Neill it would have drama.”

                       In Greek drama struggle is used as a weapon and its related struggle between men and god. But in the play of O’Neill we will find struggle between “men’s own past and future” and also himself.  For him fate,   all is the concept of subconscious. And through it he gave a new concept of tra

                                         “Pride is responsible for their tragedy.” 

                        O’Neill’s tragic heroes are the modern equivalent of the Gods.

                        In this play we will also find the trilogy of three parts.

                               The play starts with the above lines.  The singer, Seth Beckwith, finishes the last line as he enters from around the corner of the house.  Closely following him are Amos Ames, his wife Louisa, and her cousin Minnie. Seth tells her that the war is certainly over and her father is coming home. The first part starts with home coming; it is late afternoon in front of the Mannon house. The house is in the style of a Greek temple style, featuring a white, columned portico that stands like an "incongruous white mask."  Darkness, associated with death, pervades the plays: Homecoming, for instance, begins with the sunset, moves into twilight, and ends in the dark of night; 

                           The Manon  family of New England , Ezra Menon the brigadier General and  an ex- judge, has gone  to participate in civil war  and the mother    Christine and the daughter Lavinia  waits for the return of Ezra Manon. Ezra Manon is to return as the war ends with the surrender of Lee’s forces. But when Ezra Manon returns  the  family members become happy but if we minutely observe the happy moment for the return we will find that the family members only do show ups  they in real sense not looking happy because the familiar love is prevalent between them was  not  real but was an illusion.

                           Levinia is the daughter of Ezra Manon and she falls into the love of Adam Brant who was the son of Lavonia’s Grand uncle who had seduced the Canadian maid servant. Lavinia's father was ill and so she went to New York and then she met with Brant again. It shows an irresponsible daughter who is important to her boyfriend rather than her ill father. Lavinia was very dear to her father. Brant was very close to his mother. The first part ends here and here we will find Oedipus and Electra complex into the play. So the first part ends with the analysis of Oedipus and Electra complex. O’ Neill broods over death and there is in him, and there is in him a susceptibility to extremes of passion, will and affliction, that one discerns in the Jacobean. So we can say that O’Neill vision of life as something terrifying and magnificent and often quite horrible makes tragedies so powerful and moving.

                            The second part of the play is The Haunted in this part Orin returns from the war.  And got injured. Levinia gives minute detail of Christin’s room   where her father’s dead body was lying. Manon realizes her treachery and calls Lavinia for help. Lavinia rushes to her father. With his dying effort, Ezra indicates his wife: “She’s guilty not medicine.” He asps and then dies. Her strength gone, Christine collapsed in a faint. So we will find that hoe O’Neill‘s preoccupation with death and gloom makes him a kin of Webster and Ford, the prominent Jacobean dramatists. Orin also shots Brant and next day Christine commits suicide. When Christine commits suicide thereafter O’Neill makes use of device in his oeuvre, one that appears in the Iceman Commeth and elsewhere a period of terrible suspense between a major player’s decisions to suicide plays vital role which turns into taking the revenge. So at the end of the play Lavinia stammers: “It is Justice.” So we can also say that in haunted O’ Neill has appeared in his play repeatedly and in various things which leads us towards the human illusions. 

                           Into the third part we will found that in to the third part Lavinia has grown more beautiful like her mother and he brother has incestuous love for her. Lavinia wanted to marry Orin but his wish would never be fulfilled. Orin shoots himself and so Lavinia loves Peter but breaks relations with him. In this part Orin and Lavinia are back after visiting China and various other Islands. O’Neill has used many symbols, he has used sea symbols and developed South Island motifs which appear as peace, security, beauty, freedom of conscience, soundlessness etc.

Conclusion:

The playwright has given us an opportunity to peep into the character's inner conflict. The play also satisfies some of the codes of tragedy laid by Aristotle. It’s interesting that the length of the play doesn't deviate our attention. So we can say that Lavinia definitely turns from what Orin described earlier as the “Jungian eye” of the sun to live out her days in darkness which we will find as the fear of ghosts that will hound and haunt her forever. So the play is full of complexities because this play is related with the familiar relations or we can say broken relationships of the family members. And so this play gives psychological image and a vast scope of deep thinking of this play.

References:

Black, Stephen A. Eugene O’Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999.

Atkinson, Brooks. “Tragedy Becomes Electra,” New York Times, November 1, 1931. Reprinted in Houchin, John H., ed. The Critical Response to Eugene O’Neill, edited by John H. Houchin, 105–117, 126–129. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993.

“Mourning Becomes Electra as a Greek Tragedy.” Eugene O’Neill Review 26 (2004): 167–188.

O'Neill, Eugene. The plays of Eugene o' Neill Volume - 2. New Delhi: Affiliated East- West Press Pvt Ltd, n.d.