Mourning becomes Electra

Please state why mourning became her--WW

Some call the invisible star “Electra,” and say she hides herself from grief--Dr. Bill

Dr. Bill's observation is the tale behind the imagery, of course.

And, as far as the play, an Oedipal incestual love triangle ridden with denial and guilt works wonders for rendering the aura of mourning as a fitting accoutrement of attitude.

(what, you want I should give a 4½ hour classic play away for those who haven't read or seen it?) (sigh...sure, of course you do...)

>Mourning Becomes Electra, first produced on the New York stage in 1931, is an updated telling of one of the oldest, grandest, most spine-twisting tales of murder in theatre history. Taken from the ancient Greek drama The Oresteia, this version tells the story of Lavinia Mannon and her quest to avenge the murder of her father.

In an excerpt from Eugene O'Neill's diary written in the spring of 1926, he pondered whether it was possible to get a "modern approximation of the Greek sense of fate into a play intended to move an audience which no longer believes in supernatural retribution." Moreover, he questioned, "Why did the chain of fated crime and retribution ignore her mother's murderess?" This was an inherent weakness that he felt existed in the Greek tragedy — that there was no play about Electra's life after the murder of Clytemnestra.

To answer this nagging question in his mind, O'Neill crafted an addition to the story — the punishment of Electra who "has too much tragic fate within her soul to be allowed to slip from heroic legend into undramatic married banality." The fruit of his creative labor was Mourning Becomes Electra.<