ADSactly Literature: Benchmark Theater - Mourning Becomes Electra

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Just to be clear, the title refers to ‘becoming’ as in ‘suiting. According to O’Neill himself,

“By the title Mourning Becomes Electra I sought to convey that mourning befits Electra; it becomes Electra to mourn; it is her fate; black is becoming to her and it is the color that becomes her destiny.”

Just thought I’d clarify that, as I have seen it translated as if mourning actually becomes (transforms) into Electra. Now, let me tell you a bit about each of the three plays.

In Homecoming, we discover the two main female characters of the cycle, Lavinia “Vinnie” Mannon and her mother, Christine, awaiting the return of Ezra Mannon (the father) and Orin Mannon (brother) from the war. They are in stark opposition, with the mother being haughty and beautiful and the daughter being stern and cold.
The main conflict between the two women is that Lavinia has fallen in love with a Captain who has been courting her, Adam Brant, but she has just discovered that his courting her was just a facade, to hide the fact he’s having an affair with Christine.

Again, the two women are in opposition – where Lavinia is daddy’s little girl and adores her father to the point of unhealthy obsession, her mother admits to hating him and being disgusted by him throughout their marriage.
Lavinia confronts her mother about the affair and the two make a deal – Lavinia won’t tell her father, as long as Christine breaks off the affair.
However, Christine plots with her lover to poison Ezra Mannon and run away with him. The men return from war, Ezra confesses his love for Christine and regrets his coldness toward her and Christine poisons him. The first part of the trilogy ends with Mannon dying.

_{Mannon accusing his wife of murder with his dying breath source}

Although they tell everyone he died of natural causes, Lavinia realizes what her mother has done and seeks to convince her brother Orin as well. They sneak unto Brant’s ship and overhear their mother confessing to the murder. They wait for her to leave and, in a rage, Orin murders Brant.
Christine is left heartbroken over his loss, but not for long, because Orin admits it was he who killed him and in despair, Christine Mannon runs into the house and shoots herself.

The third part of the cycle, The Haunting, sees Lavinia undergo a drastic change – where before she was quiet and austere, she now wears bright colors (like her mother) and flirts with men. She practically becomes her dead mother. Orin, however, becomes more and more mournful and quiet and allows Lavinia to order him around (as he allowed their mother before her). They return home after a year-long voyage, to find the house haunted by the ghost of their mother, as well as other dead Mannons. Throughout The Haunting, Orin is consumed by guilt over his mother’s suicide and attempts to confess his sins, but his sister prevents him, since his confession would damn both of them.

_{Lavinia and Orin in a 2003 Seattle production}

The relationship between the two becomes gradually more tense. Orin wants to marry the neighboring girl, Hazel, but Lavinia won’t allow him, for fear he would tell her the truth. Lavinia in turn attempts to marry Hazel’s brother, but Orin stops her, for fear of bringing another into their twisted family.
Understanding his death would only mean justice, Orin goes off and kills himself and Lavinia, understanding her own mistakes and her own justice, accepts the idea of shunning society and living as an outcast in their family home, with the ghosts of all the dead Mannons. She orders the servant to board up the windows, so that no sunlight may come in and goes off into the darkness.

I hate the daylight. It's like an accusing eye! No, we've renounced the day, in which normal people live—or rather it has renounced us. Perpetual night—darkness of death in life—that's the fitting habitat for guilt!
(Orin)

‘Mourning Becomes Electra’ is basically a retelling of the Greek tragedy Oresteia, by Aeschylus, also a trilogy, which tells the story of Agamemnon who is murdered upon returning from the Trojan War, by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover (in revenge for him sacrificing their eldest daughter at the beginning of the war, so they could sail to Troy).

_{The Murder of Agamemnon}

To avenge their father’s death, Orestes and Electra (hence the title of O’Neill’s play) murder their mother and her lover. But Aeschylus’ play is different in the last part, where Orestes is indeed haunted by the Three Graces, who wish to kill him in retaliation for his killing a family member, but Athena, the goddess of wisdom, convinces them not to. She presides over the first ever trial and decides Orestes should not die for his sins.

‘Mourning Becomes Electra’ is full of interesting ideas and themes, but perhaps the two most prevalent ones are the past haunting the present and the absence of gods. Essentially, if you take a good look at it, you find all the characters are traumatized by past events. They constantly express a desire to break free and live new lives – Christine begins her affair with Brant precisely because of that, Lavinia and Orin go away on a trip with that in mind and it is obvious, throughout the trilogy, that Lavinia blames her Puritan, rigid existence on her mother and wishes to break free.

But they can’t break free. Christine is haunted by her traumatic wedding night, Orin and Lavinia by their childhoods, from which it is obvious they can’t escape, even though they are both adults now. And the whole family is haunted by a past sin, Adam Brant himself being the bastard son of a servant woman, by one of the Mannon’s ancestors.

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The other fascinating theme of the play is the absence of the gods. Because on most counts, ‘Mourning Becomes Electra’ follows the rules of a Greek tragedy (duh, only normal, since it’s a retelling of one). But not here. See, Greek tragedies, understandably, are dominated by the Gods. Fate is a huge part of the story there.
But here, the horrible acts the family commits are not guided by the gods, but by the family itself. Things don’t happen because some third party decided they should. The motivation behind all their actions can easily be traced back into the main characters themselves.

Apparently, O’Neill had a "theory that the forces that determine one's fate are no longer external to the human being's world."

The characters are driven by selfishness, mostly, by repressed sexual desires and frustrations (mainly because of their strict, Puritan upbringing) and by past traumas. Considering the important role of the past in O’Neill’s play, it’s easy to understand the ending, where Vinnie locks herself away with the ghosts. In a way, they’ve been locked together from the beginning.

Another big element of the story are the eyes – the Mannons themselves are described as being very mask like, very closed and secretive, always scheming and never revealing their true feelings and intentions. The other characters of the play, such as Hazel and her brother, come as a contrast – they are naive and open and the Mannons are constantly searching their eyes, to understand them and see the truth.

_{MBE at the Target Margin Theater src}

In the beginning, Christine Mannon feels followed around the room by the eyes of the dead Mannons in portraits and berates them, as does her daughter later in the play.

Secret-lookin'—'s if it was a mask she'd put on. That's the Mannon look. They all has it. They grow it on their wives.

Overall, it’s a fascinating play, exploring a lot of interesting concepts popular at the time, especially those in Freudian psychoanalysis, such as the Oedipus complex and the Electra complex. Like many plays of the 20th century, they took on a dark tone, addressing a lot of delicate topics, such as incest, repression and suicide. It goes right to the heart of what it means to be human, you know, the nasty stuff, not just the pretty pink flowers.

It’s a remarkable piece of writing and I would recommend reading it, rather than watching it (though I’m sure there are some great adaptations out there), since it’s a very rich text and you’re bound to miss some themes/concepts/images if you don’t read it.

Have you read/seen ‘Mourning Becomes Electra’?

Authored by @honeydue

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