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EUGENE O'NEILL: MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA - Coggle Diagram
EUGENE O'NEILL: MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA
World War I
one of the greatest shocks that ever ravaged the world
end
millions of people were dead
young generation
during or after the war
became hopeless about their future
disillusionment
protest against the patriarchal concept of the family
rebellion against the values and customs of their elders
after the war
poverty
economic instability
unemployment
Veterans
returned from different parts of the country
broken both in mind and body
women
struggle to provide for their children
without the help of their men
America
Great Depression of the 1930s
O'Neill's play was written
wage slavery
crime
writers
began to experiment with form
American theatre
1920s
Expressionism
brought from Germany
part of the Modernist movement
most precursor playwright in American literature
Eugene O'Neill
Publication date
1931
Themes
Oedipus' myth and Electra's myth
Oedipus complex
the child's incestuous desire for the parent of the opposite sex
Electra
the main pair of incestuous lovers is Mother-Son
the double and the rival
Lavinia sees Christine as a double and rival
the Law of the Father
Ezra
incest
between Lavinia and his father
Orin and his sister
hatred and revenge
Christine's hatred for her husband
Lavinia's hatred for Christine
Adam's hatred for Ezra
he considers responsible for his mother's death
hopes to destroy the Mannon family
Orin wants revenge with Brant
sleeping with his mother
sin
murder
Christine's killing of her husband
Lavinia and Orin's killing of Adam
adultery
Christine's with Brant
suicide
Christine's and Orin's
premarital sex
Lavinia's with the islander
Motifs
the Blessed Islands
paradisiacal existence
characters can consume their incestuous relationships
the natives
sexual innocent
sexually depraved
Symbols
The Mannon House
built in the style of a Greek Temple
coloured in white
resembling a mask
mask-like faces of the inhabitants
Ezra
haunts the livings
daylight
guilt
Literary devices
pairing of elements
chorus
personification
simile
O'Neill
plays
expressionistic elements
masks which conceal the actor's faces
pairing of characters and chorus
extensive stage directions
multi-page-long stage directions
focus on setting and characters
the character is exactly as he pictures
reveal information about the character
before they speak
evocative titles
Greek style structure
the group of local people
their conversations and actions open the play serves as the Chorus
Genre
based on Oresteia trilogy
myth of Oedipus
tragedy
Homecoming
House
Mannon's sepulchre
crypt
family's deaths
their secrets
written in Modernism
Setting
New England of the Civil War period
Characters
forms and conflicts of the Greek characters
the heroic leader returning from war
his adulterous wife who murders him
his jealous, repressed daughter who avenges him
murder of her mother
his weak, incestuous son who is goaded by his sister
matricide
suicide
Ezra
figure of the paternal law
Christine will cringe before his portrait
he wears the judge's robes
Lavinia invokes his name and voice
command Orin to attention
Agamemnon's counterpart
the great general returning from war to be murdered by her wife and her lover
Orin Mannon
returned from war
loves his mother incestuously
he is competing with Ezra and Brant for Christine
Christine Mannon
plots her husband's murder with her lover Brant
green dress
envies Brant's Island women
hates them for their sexual pleasure
repeats incestuous relationship with Brant and Orin
Adam Brant
dresses as if some Romantic Byronic ideal
powerful
romantic sea captain
child of the illegitimate Mannon line
returns to wreak vengeance on Ezra's household
steals Ezra's wife
seduces Lavinia
another son incestuously enthralled with Mother and her substitutes
Tone
detached vs. dark
melodramatic
tragic
Writing style
short and simple
sometimes surreal