Psychological analysis of ‘ Mourning Becomes Electra’

• Topic : Psychological analysis of ‘ Mourning Becomes Electra’.• Name : Kinjal Patel

• Paper Name: The American Literature• Paper No: 10• Sem : 3

• Roll No: 14• Submitted to: Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.

Morning Becomes Electra

About author • Eugene O’Neill was

born on 16th October 1888 and died on 27th November 1953.

• He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1936 and Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1920, 1922, 1928 and 1957.

• “ He is the height and breadth of the American theatre…” ---- John Gassner

• In O’Neill’s play the struggle is with man himself, man’s own past and future.

• In the barren land of American drama, Eugene O’ Neill grew a beautiful pastureland.

• He was a pioneer American dramatists.

O’Neill’s inspiration• O’ Neill reflects the

psychological conflicts in the mind of characters and got inspiration from Freud.

• Unlike the Greek and Elizabethan tragedies in which the protagonists are confronted with the conflicting forces.

• O’ Neill like T.S.Eliot, went to the Greek for inspiration.

Characters

• Psychology as a method of psychological investigation has a bearing on O’ Neill’s plays.

• His characters are emotional but sterile.

Freudian start

• The play opens with ordinary people gossiping about the extra marital affairs of Christine, wife of Ezra Mannon.

• This is a Freudian start.

Psychoanalytical tradition

Gardener Seth’s

Psychoanalytical tradition

Past

Present Future

Head of the family

Be – all

End –all

Lancan’s complex

• Major – Brigadier- General- judge and he also served in the army. This dwarfing of personality gives birth to castration complex of Lancan.

• The son feels obliged to love only one woman that is his mother.

Freudian context

• Ezra’s death is both clinical and psychological in the Freudian context.

• Slip of tongue is both Freudian and Lancanian.

• Lavinia is offending herself on Peter Niles, she addresses him as ‘Adam’- the real love of her life.

The Homecoming

The Hunted

The Haunted

Greek Pattern

• O’ Neill’s case is profoundly psychological just as Hamlet is a drama of psychologically motivated characters.

• O’ Neill has made remarkable attempt to dramatize sub – conscious emotions.

Hamlet and The Mourning Becomes

Electra

Cunning Christine

• Christine is sly and malicious and she plans the murder in a cunning manner knowing that her husband has heart problem.

• She lets it be knowing in the public about the gravity of his ailment.

Serious of Killings

• She makes him suffer and poisons him.

• But he dies only to give birth to a series of violent revenge killings.

• When the brother Orin returns from the war the sister, Lavinia maneuvers him in a situations where he kills Brant before his killing another psychological aberration in the form of mother son’s incestuous relationship is found.

Incest• There is incest in

brother sister relationship too.

• It is Lavinia who is the prime factor of personality shortcomings.

• She would neither like her brother to have normal relationship with Hazel nor allow herself to have ties with captain Peter Niles.

Tragic end • Orin to

madness and suicide just as they had driven her mother to frustration and suicide,• Lavinia

draws the curtains on her own self and opts for the life of recluse.

Oedipus and Electra complex• We rarely

find Oedipus and Electra complex together but in this play we do.

Conclusion

• Thus, O’ Neill is a master craftsman but in this play it seems as if he was writing within the psychological and psychoanalytical framework.