Mourning Becomes Electra as a Greek Tragedy :-
Mourning Becomes Electra is a Greek Tragedy in the sense of its title clearly indicates that it is a story ‘Mourning Becomes Electra’ informs us about the Greek Tragedy. The very title mourning becomes Electra brings Greeks plays and Greek days to our mind. Many writers in ancient Greece drew on the story of the house Atreus, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides Homer, being prominent among them Agamemnon brother of Menelaus goes to the war at Troy. Clytemnestra his wife takes Aegisthos as her paramour and shares the government of Agras with him. In due course of time Agamemnon returns having sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia .He brings with him Cassandra ,Priam’s daughter. Clytemnestra and her lover murder him. Electra feels ashamed and wishes for her brother’s return home he was sent abroad by her mother and has now become a man. Orestes returns and kills Clytemnestra and Agisthus. He is pursued by the Erinyes and keeps wandering about in agony . He finally vindicates himself before the Tribunal of Athena’s Aeropagus and his cleansed of his sin.
Mourning becomes Electra tragedy begins Lavinia waiting for Ezra Mannon to return home after the war same was in Greek tragedy that also does justify the tiltle of the play ‘Mourning Becomes Electra ‘. We get to know about romance between Livinia and Peter and between Lavinia’s brother Orion and Hazle Peter’s sister in the meantime captain Brant calls Lavinia has already been briefed by an old employee about this man and manages to provoke him into an admission that too, is the son of Mannon Who married a Canadian maid servant and was ousted from home by his father, Lavinia’s grandfather Lavinia ,now ,has the picture clear in her mind. She expected her mother of having an affair with captain Adam Brant and followed her to New York Christine pretended that she went to New York to see her ailing father. Lavinia writes to her father and brother about the Town gossip about her mother. Captain Adam wishes to revenge on the Mannons the disgrace they caused to his mother.
Now the play takes on turn and we get to know that the daughter loves her father a great deal and this has caused arift between the daughter who reciprocates in equal measure and loves his mother. When Ezra Mannon returns, Christine does not manage to conceal her hatred for him .When the retired General Ezra Mannon has a heart attack and asks for medicine ,Christine takes advantage of this opportunity and give him a poison drugs .She had already planned to kill Ezra in connivance with her lover captain Brant doing, Ezra tells Lavinia who happens to drop in that it was Christine who caused his death not the medicine. In the mean time Orin returns. Christine tries to poison his mind against Lavinia , she tries to do this as a precaution lest Lavinia should tell the truth regarding Mannon’s death and her affair with captain Adam .But Lavinia manages to convince Orin of the conspiracy hatched by Christine and Adam .Orin and Lavinia chase capital Adam where Christine has already gone to warn him of the impeding danger Orin shoots captain Brant and thereafter they go on a long to China .They also have a stop grown like her mother and Orin, now, looks like his father. Once again the old love Hazel and Orin is revived for a short while and Lavinia wishes to marry Peter but all this comes to an end .Orin shoots himself, Lavinia professing her love to Peter utters the word Adam. This results in a miss understanding. The affair with Peter comes to an end. She goes into her room to to live there till death. justice seems to have been done.
The story of mourning becomes Electra seems to resemble the facts of the original Greek trilogy , or ‘ Mourning Becomes Electra Greek Tragedy ‘ particularly, ‘Homecoming’ is closest to its original. The Genreal returns home form war the way Agamemnon did and is murdered by his wife the way Agamemnon was murder by Clytemnestra instigated by her lover Adam Brant (Aegisthus).The mother and daughter confront each other but there are certain differences, as well Christian and Adam do not stab .Ezra but poison him, in fact, Christine alone does it. Neither Ezra Mannon and Clytemnestra had. Ezra seems more like a lonely old man than a conquering Hero. His guilt is also small as compared with other Agamemnon ‘s. He is not cruel and self willed or proud like Agamemon . His only fault being his inability to establish the sort of love relationship that Christine wanted .This is a puritanical failure Christine hatred is not as great as Clytemnestra’s was, nor is her love for Adam Brant as passionate as Clytemnestra’s was for Aegisthus. She seems more vindictive and poisonous and less heroic she acts like a neurotic and her hatred of Ezra , too is that of an neurotic person .Even the Second play in the Trilogy .The hunted resembles the original Greek in many ways but Christine commits suicide. This suicide substitutes for the murder of the original Greek emphasizing the anti heroic nature of the modern protagonist .In case of Orin it the furies the in the Greek myth which have been substituted by the tortured consciousness of the modern hero centers upon the character of Electra rather than that of Orestes .It describes this character as the only heroic character , making her tragedy, the only true tragedy . In the original Greek Electra marries peasant farmer and Peter out into an dramatic ,married banality
.In ONeill’s plays this character is consistently developed until Electra becomes the title figure. In changing Electra character from the original Greek O’neill has also changed the dramatic conception of the play. Orin can find no absolution from the furies, which drove Orestes because Orin has accepted the the redemption of his evil nature and committed suicide. Electra is the only character the triumphs over the evil of her heritage by recognizing it clearly and by determining to live with it to the end .She says she is the last Mannon and she has got to punish herself she gets all the flowers thrown away lock yourself in a room with her families member learning fully to understand her on past and also how to cry or mourn for it. The modern Electra, Lavinia regains her humanity by suffering more than her and ancestors did. At the end of the play she seems to have begin her long day journey in tonight .She seems heroic and her mourning becomes her. So , at the end we can say that’ Mourning Becomes Electra Greek Tragedy ‘in every sense.
Click here for more related questions
