Guide Note:
Mourning Becomes Electra is a trilogy of plays by American playwright Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953). The plays are closely based on the Greek myth of Orestes, and especially on Aeschylus' trilogy Oresteia. To this foundation O'Neill adds American history and Freudian psychology to present the self-destruction of one family in New England at the end of The Civil War. Mourning Becomes Electra is a dark tragedy featuring adultery, incest, murder, suicide, revenge, madness. As the play opens, Ezra Mannon returns from the war, only to be poisoned by his adulterous wife, Christine. His daughter Lavinia and son Orin avenge their father's death by killing their mother's lover. The mother, Christine, commits suicide. Orin later also takes his own life. Lavinia shuts herself up in the house, with the memories of her dead relatives to haunt her.
Fast Facts:
- Published in 1931
- The three plays of the triology are: Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted.
- Setting: New England, USA, 1865-1866
- Stage performances can be six hours long
- Most stage performances are abridged to last about three hours
- In 1947 made into a film
- In 1967 adapted into an opera
- Quotation: "I had a queer feeling that war meant murdering the same man over and over, and that in the end I would discover the man was myself!"
