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- Writer: Eugene O'Neill
- Setting: New England 1865-1866
- Premiere Date: Published in 1931
- Stage performances can be six hours long
- 1947 made into a Film
- 1967 adapted into an Opera
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Synopsis
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.The plays are closely based on the Greek myth of Orestes - especially on the 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.
Characters
- Ezra Mannon - Brittle New Englander, is judge, mayor and, most recently, one of Grant's generals in the Civil War
- Christine Mannon - Ezra's wife, stopped loving him as soon as they were married
- Lavinia Mannon - Daughter of Ezra and Christine, hates her mother and adores her father
- Orin Mannon - Lavinia's weak-willed brother, hates his father and adores his mother
- Adam Brant - Bastard son of Ezra's uncle by a servant
- Peter - Orin's childhood friend and Lavinia's fiance
- Helen - Peter's sister, is Lavinia's childhood friend and Orin's fiance
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Mourning Becomes Electra Questions
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Mourning Becomes Electra in TV and Films
- Note: The links in this timeline are to IMDb, which has pop-ups.
- 1947: Mourning Becomes Electra (Film)
- 1978: Mourning Becomes Electra (TV mini-series)
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Mourning Becomes Electra Author Information
- Mahalo Guide to Eugene O'Neill
- Wikipedia: Eugene O'Neill
- Nobel Prize: Eugene O'Neill
- Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site: American Drama Transformed
- University of Virginia Library: Setting the Modern Stage
- eOneill: An Electronic Eugene O'Neill Archive
- Binghamton University: Eugene O'Neill, 1888-1953
- The New York Times: " Why O'Neill's Ghosts Haunt Us Still" (June 12, 1988)
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female agency as greek tragedy in mourning becomes electra #refdesk
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