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MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA Thematic MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA Thematic Characterization: O’ Neill experimented with different techniques of characterization in different plays. His art of characterization, therefore, depends upon what kind of theme he is handling in a particular play. Since in Mourning Becomes Electra his theme is concerned with evil, death, war, Puritanism, freedom, is, therefore, is fundamentally thematic and meant to help in understanding the central idea of the play more clearly and easily. The Great Novelist: Mourning Becomes Electra represents the culmination of O’ Neill works in the theatre and is the triumph of his conscious art. It marks the high water mark of O’Neill’s critical success. O’Neill had always regarded it as his greatest work. In the words of Carpenter: “The logical perfection of Mourning Becomes Electra, and the sustained psychological intensity if it's feeling, produced an artistic work of great power.” The play is hailed as the greatest American tragedy. It is divided into three parts. The first and third each have four acts, and the middle one five. In all, it is a thirteen act trilogy. Victims of Evil: O’ Neill’s characters in Mourning Becomes Electra particularly those belonging to the Mannon clan, are victims if evil. Especially Lavinia, who has been thinking of choosing Captain Peter Niles as her life- partner, has decided not to marry him because her father needs her more than anyone else. She is so much disgusted with Christine’s affair with Adam that her very faith in love is totally shattered. To stress this point, O’ Neill has forward his attention on the character of Lavinia. Psychological Motivation and Complexes: In Mourning Becomes Electra O’ Neill appears to have made the psychological motivation. Freudian theories of characters (Oedipus and electra complex) are a version of reality that explains the crimes of the Mannons and their feelings of guilt. It has described the sinful love of the son for the mother and the daughter for the father as a universal, compulsive pattern. O’ Neill chose Freudian psychology to motivate the action. Freudianism, as it was understood or misunderstood, represented in the 1920s a definite complex of attitudes about the importance of the psyche as a key to human behavior. Chorus Characters: O’Neill seems to have been aware of this difficulty, and he attempted to meet it by introducing a “Chorus” of “townsfolk….. as a human background for the drama of Mannons.” Exchange of Roles: Characters on O’Neill’s plays often exchange roles at different points in the drama. In Mourning Becomes Electra, after Christine has killed herself and Lavinia becomes fully a developed woman, she takes Christine’s place in the play as a whole, but especially for Orin who was so close to his mother. Adam Brant includes the identity if Marie Brantome and takes place from begging of the play, thus continuing his dramatic impact, even after her death, upon the Mannon family. When Lavinia returns with Orin from clipper ship in the fifth act of The Hunted, she represents all the Mannon harshness. She has completely taken the place of Ezra. When Lavinia becomes feminine, and in the process “becomes” Christines, there is no left to play Ezra and to fill this characters vacuum Orin becomes more like his father. So it is evident in this play that O’Neill’s characters often exchange their roles. Puritanism in the play Within this general situation O’Neill specifies, his puritanism. It is not a careful historical approximation of New England attitudes vintage 1865 ; it is puritanism as O’Neill understood it through the eyes of his own generation. And, in the early twentieth century, among the avant-garde of the literary world, it was the sum total’ of everything that was wrong with American society. No matter what the private views of individuals, the official American posture was a hypocritical, righteously irreligious (or a-religious) puritanism. The puritan background of Mourning Becomes Electra comprises, along with broader classical elements, that complex of attitudes described and decried by Mencken and his associates. O’Neill weaves these attitudes into the background of his action. As the locale calls puritanism to mind; O’Neill visualizes the tradition in his stage setting. The Mannon house characterizes the family. The facade of the mansion is fronted by a white Grecian temple portico with six tall columns and a gray stone wall behind. This portico is like an incongruous white mask fixed on the house to hide its sombre gray ugliness. If the audience fails to mark the significance of the setting, early in the first act it is called to their attention. In the words of Christine : Every time I come back after being away it (the house) appears more like a sepulchre ! The “whited” one of the Bible––pagan temple front stuck like a mask on Puritan gray, ugliness ! It was just like old Abe Mannon to build such a monstrosity––as a temple for his hatred. The action is played against this parisaical facade as the house of the Mannons visualizes for the audience the traditional attitudes of the “House of Mannon”. The attitudes of the townspeople-chorus underscore the conventionality of the play’s puritanism. The middle-class conspiracy which aspires to Babylonian practices while proclaiming Christian values weds hypocrisy with a practical view of sex. The women gossip in orthodox fashion ; coming away from Ezra’s wake, Mrs. Hills blurts out : “You remember, Everett, you’ve always said about the Mannons that pride goeth before a fall and that someday God would humble them in their sinful pride.” .
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